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.
Ultimate Magic gathers *most* of the mundane and magic items printed in Pathfinder resources insofar. As a "Magic Item Compendium" it's a very good publication, with one snag - while it would be way too much to expect *every* PF item listed here, a select few that became extremely popular are missing here - agile weapon property, I am looking at you. Nevertheless, it's a combination of existing and new stuff that works very well as a comprehensive resource for your Pathfinder games. Also, a few really not working items (garrote, hello!) haven't been reprinted here and some errors (APG staff pricing) are fixed. So yeah, I wish this book was a bit more ultimate than it is.
However, what *really* blows this book out of the water for me as the GM is the random treasure generation system. Best one I've seen so far, with attention to detail and usefulness not seen in any other resource I've happened upon in d20. Sorry MIC, this is where UE wins hands down. Invaluable time saver so dearly missed from Pathfinder since day 1 is here.
UPDATE: After getting the hardcover and realizing that it pretty much works as a complete equipment resource for players (including class-tailored item kits), I've bumped the review up a star. But I am still a bit grumpy over the agile enhancement!
This book has a lot of great ideas in it. The charts are neat and some of he things you can do with them are just awesome; or they would be if so many of the items weren't so screwy. Many are just cut and paste jobs, errors and all, from earlier sources. Some beg obvious questions and clarifications that aren't provided and make little to no sense when compared with the "Core" rules.
My advice is to skip this book and wait for the next printing/errata; it desperately needs it.
Perhaps I've become spoiled but I expect a lot more from a Paizo hardcover than this.
Had a good look through the book and am liking a lot of things I'm seeing Including new Items that use Ki and stat enhancers that give other benefits. Add in the large number of tables and charts and I think it is a real winner.
This hardcover consists of many reprints of old items. However, these reprints do not correct any previous errors. We have mispriced items all over the place.
In addition, Ultimate Equipment does not reprint all of Pathfinder RPG's magic items. If it is to be a collection of reprints, then it needs to be a complete collection. It found room to reprint even the rules for masterwork items, why could it not be a complete collection?
Why pay money for a incomplete book of cut-and-paste, error-filled reprints?
Further, the original content in Ultimate Equipment spans a wide range of writing quality. Prices for magic items are often inconsistent. Also, the active monk hate, from the brawling armor enhancement to the blade of the sword-saint, was not appreciated. Including a monk's holy avenger and making it such that a monk is not proficient in it was a fine piece of work.
It's as if the entire book is entirely unedited. If I actually wanted to use this book, I would have to wade through so much text and fix many, many items myself.
One star. There's no excuse for this book. Edit your books, Paizo, so I don't have to.
This is a fantastic book, with sky-high production values. The indexing and arrangement of the items is probably the biggest strength - it is fast to find everything in the book. I love that it includes items from all the other core books, so that there is no need to go hunting between books for elusive bits of kit. This is one of the few hardcovers I'll actually tote to sessions for my players to look through.
Basically, its a special weapon property that is akin to obsidian (aka green volcanic glass). Except the glass is highly toxic and when you strike someone with a viridum weapon, its a DC 12 Fortitude save or they contract leprosy.
I love it so much.
I truly mean no offense but usually a fight against a "opponent" in Pathfinder is quite often to the death (except in terms of outsiders who can make use of teleporting powers). My question for you is how does inflicting a "disease" upon an opponent help kill a foe? One would think that more than 84% of the time it would be utterly useless!
And donning/doffing time for Core Book armours only :(
They include more armors and don't even bother to include the donning/doffing times for them? That's not good. Also, no "fast-donning straps" for armor? That's also bit of a let down.
Basically, its a special weapon property that is akin to obsidian (aka green volcanic glass). Except the glass is highly toxic and when you strike someone with a viridum weapon, its a DC 12 Fortitude save or they contract leprosy.
I love it so much.
I truly mean no offense but usually a fight against a "opponent" in Pathfinder is quite often to the death (except in terms of outsiders who can make use of teleporting powers). My question for you is how does inflicting a "disease" upon an opponent help kill a foe? One would think that more than 84% of the time it would be utterly useless!
Yeah, viridium blades sound like the sort of thing certain cults, drow houses, and all-around jerks would just love to use.
Your usual heroic characters wouldn't want to use them for that property, but those that enjoy inflicting suffering or appreciate the psychological effect of knowing that even just getting scraped can doom a person will be all over this.
Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Viridium sounds like a very nasty and demoralizing material to equip an army with. The opposing side would panic every time they see a rain of Viridium tipped arrows flying towards them.
Freakin' yikes. An army could just catapult scatterbomb loads of viridium caltrops into cities. Many would land in the streets. Plenty will be stuck on walls and rooftops. Those things could claim victims long after a war even if the city holds, like unexploded shells.
I don't know if that will be what you are looking for though.
DAMMIT. No, no it's not. I'm looking for a whip made of metal links with a miniature spiked ball at the end. Like Castlevania's "Vampire Killer" whip.
What you're looking for isn't actually classified as a whip by anyone except the people who make Castlevania games. Look for a flail or a meteor hammer.
I just want a whip that doesn't need a feat to do lethal damage that still has reach. But it looks like we are keeping the UC version of the Scorpion whip for now so no luck there.
I entirely agree with that, even the crappy plastic space age ARs I have used would still hurt whacked around someone's noggin! It is mainly that illustration of the Warhammer Musket, just hilarious :D
Actually, muskets had very heavy butts, because the thing basically exploded while firing, and a counterweight was required to keep the gun remotely in your grasp after the boom happened.
I've long quit looking seriously at fantasy weapon artwork :)
You know weird pistol/musket/hand-weapon hybrids are actually period weapons. Might I recommend taking a quick look here or here. You can actually see a polish warhammer pistol here.
I haven't actually had time to look at Ultimate Equipment yet, so I can't critique the art. But the warhammer/wheellock while a historical oddity is a real weapon.
I also think the punch dagger/double pistol shown above is a particularly sweet weapon that would make a great item for a PC gunslinger.
I just want a whip that doesn't need a feat to do lethal damage that still has reach. But it looks like we are keeping the UC version of the Scorpion whip for now so no luck there.
What's wrong with the Scropion whip? It has reach, and doesn't need a feat (beyond proficiency (whip)) to do lethal damage.
Plus, if you're a serious whip user, you're probably getting that feat anyway.
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Oh my god this looks great! Only just started looking at it content-wise, but design-wise...
-- THANK YOU FOR FIXING THE INCONSISTENT COMMA ISSUE ("sword, short" vs "longsword" -- now it's shortsword and longsword and this grammatical consistency thing that probably only bothered me is gone and YAY.)
-- I LOVE THE LAYOUT! Very clean, very easy to read, I like that the little pretty watermarky stuff on the side is lightened and less complex looking--it still adds style to the document without making things overwhelming (and competing with all the art on the page) and I reckon will also make things way, way, way printer friendlier. The use of color in the headings is helpful for a book which is basically one big long book of lists, as are the small all-cap gothic headers in certain areas. I don't know if I'd want to see all of the same tricks used in other kinds of books but it works really well here.
-- Thanks for the quicklinks on the side on the .pdf--that makes it much more usable as a .pdf. Generally speaking I think this is one of the most screen-readable documents you've put out.
I've also noticed that while it's not entirely avoided (as it would likely be impossible to be) there are fewer paragraphs/item entries that are broken across a page which also makes it easier to look at on the .pdf. I did notice one page where there was nothing but an item header at the bottom of the page and its description at the top of the next column which is a little wonky but that's not common, so far as I can see.
-- The art is great--helps illustrate but the items are small and simple enough they do not dominate the page. I appreciate each item is matched to its entry so you know exactly what you are looking at, as opposed to seeing a picture of sword and realizing what's depicted is 3 pages ago.
As I said I'm still just starting to absorb content. There's some stuff I'm gonna want to houserule or not use (although some of that is stuff from Ultimate Combat so it's not new) but so far so good, and it's so useful to have this in one place. I like the new special materials. And I love the different "kits" for the classes, great way of handling the various "kit" requests a bunch of us threw into the request thread awhile back.
And finally after 12 years, we know what a backpack holds! :D
Thanks for the quicklinks on the side on the .pdf--that makes it much more usable as a .pdf. Generally speaking I think this is one of the most screen-readable documents you've put out.
This is a new thing we're trying to implement on new PDFs with a hardcover counterpart. While hyperlinking the whole document isn't possible within our time constraints, I'm glad what we can do is useful to some! :)
You know weird pistol/musket/hand-weapon hybrids are actually period weapons. Might I recommend taking a quick look here or here. You can actually see a polish warhammer pistol here.
I haven't actually had time to look at Ultimate Equipment yet, so I can't critique the art. But the warhammer/wheellock while a historical oddity is a real weapon.
I also think the punch dagger/double pistol shown above is a particularly sweet weapon that would make a great item for a PC gunslinger.
Wow you learn something everyday! The lump on the end of the pistol is just a wee bit smaller than the illustration, but fantasy games can't seem to get past anime looking weps now-a-days anyway.
***grognard sniff***
Great link thanks Gary, and tell the printers to hurry up with WotW 3 and 4 for me!
I am liking the book overall so far, I especially like the extensive mundane items available, and crazy weps! Warhammer Pistol is missing tho ;)
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Gully13 wrote:
No Dwarven Maulaxe? Do I have to remove this from my PFS character?
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Hm, reading the other thread, my enthusiasm for getting the hardcover later on has considerably cooled. The "Bodywrap of giving the Ultimate Middle Finger to Monks" really is getting my dander up.
Hm, reading the other thread, my enthusiasm for getting the hardcover later on has considerably cooled. The "Bodywrap of giving the Ultimate Middle Finger to Monks" really is getting my dander up.
While that particular item is underwhelming (but certainly not the end of the world, nor is it even the f-you to monks its naysayers are saying it is, and I'm usually in the mob clamoring for good stuff for monks), and there's a few other bits of content I'm not thrilled with, the book is also chock full of good stuff as well. It is wall to wall with content including a lot of content at least I as a collector of the RPG books have never seen before. I think there are a lot of people who are focusing on what it doesn't have ("they don't contain that one item I liked from that one book that they never said they would include the content from it! Ergo, the whole book is ruined!") instead of all the stuff it DOES have... which is lots of gear, useful descriptions, new item materials, new item properties... and of course the utterly awesome random gen treasure tables. Plus of course the whole point of the book is to be a compilation of stuff from the RPG books and Adventurer's Armory, so the value of having one place to look up gear is awesome to me.
Does the book have its flaws? Sure. I can't think of any RPG book that didn't. Are there bits I don't like? Yup. But the nerdrage on this one honestly baffles me.
(And again, I'm in the "need moar for monks" crowd--but they also made very clear what this book was and was not going to include as far as monks go, so anyone who is surprised has not been paying attention.)
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Oh, I am still getting the PDF, as the random item tables alone will be quite useful. Nonetheless, getting the hardcover has gone way down as a priority.
Oh, I am still getting the PDF, as the random item tables alone will be quite useful. Nonetheless, getting the hardcover has gone way down as a priority.
Because a few outspoken people raised a smurfstorm about one single item? That's...really petty.