Following in the tradition of the most popular Pathfinder Player Companion of all time, Adventurer's Armory 2 is a comprehensive guide to equipment of all sorts. Containing a wide array of new adventuring gear, alchemical items, armor, clothing options, magic items,poisons, tools, traps, and weapons to outfit any character, this guide is a welcome addition to any armory. Whether you're looking to gain the edge in combat or fit in to a social situation, Pathfinder Player Companion: Adventurer's Armory 2 has you covered!
Inside this book you'll find:
New feats, spells, and skill tricks to allow any adventurer to get the most out of the equipment they already own.
Armor and weapon modifications, allowing smiths or skilled adventurers to customize equipment on the fly to meet specific needs.
New construct familiars known as poppets—stuffed or wicker dolls crafted to carry out simple tasks at their masters' bidding.
This Pathfinder Player Companion is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder campaign setting, but can easily be incorporated into any fantasy world.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-945-5
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I first read "Adventurer´s Armory" and then this book. The first one is superior in every single way.
GOOD:
-The Spider-Silk Bodysuit is very useful if you are a drow with high dex and not enough money for bracers of armor.
-The Dwarven war shield is nice if you always wanted to play a dwarf with two shields.
-The Drow Razor is great for sneak attacks and criticals.
-The Sanpkhang is a poison-users weapon of choice.
-Gnome Piston Maul & Gnome Ripsaw Glaive are both fun and useful.
-The Orc Hornbow is very powerful, but it´s an exotic weapon for everyone without orc-blood.
-The tools and kits are good as are the poisons.
-The six spells are all very flavorful and useful.
-The Alchemical Wares.
-Concoctions are fun, especially if you drink too many.
BAD:
-The traits are all much too specialized.
20 out of the 25 new weapons are bad.
-The Ladder, Lantern, Lamp, Mirror and Pole Equipment tricks are very special and far away from the usefulness of the Heavy Blade Scabbard and Shield tricks from AA.
-The new Clothing, magic items and Alchemical Equipment tricks are of very limited use or costly.
-The Equipment from Abroad items are underwhelming.
UGLY:
-Equipment Packages are clearly overpowered for 1st level characters. For instance, the "Holy Warrior Package" is worth 1245 gold pieces - more than a 2nd level player character has!
-Armor Modifications give very minor special boni but impose larger penalties.
-The Butchering Axe is way overpowered, i wouldn´t allow it in my games.
-The Weapon modifications are very pricy, give minor boni and often may need a feat to use.
-The nine feats are all bad.
-Out of the 18 Adventuring Gear items, 17 are very special and one is overpowered (Spring loaded scroll case).
-Nalinivati´s kiss got cut from the book but is still listed on the interior back cover.
-Poppets, while being a nice idea, are too cheap and easy to construct, their capabilities are held too vague. Their whole existence undermines the craft construct feat and would change the way manual labor is done on Golarion significantly. This is not well thought out.
To me 21 of 30 pages are useless, 9 are interesting.
While i am used to the fact that most of the Player Companions have 50% good and 50% bad content, this one is weaker than most.
Following the recent trend of compiling, repackaging, and nerfing of material from other books this product also adds a lot more unnecessary and very niche gear to further contribute to Pathfinder bloat. This is compounded further with the fact that every interesting item features a drawback and Feat tax to avoid said drawback. The only standout items in this book are the Equipment Packages and the Poppets, but these aren't really enough to justify the cost and further game bloat.
For the most part this is a very solid book. The equipment packages are a great idea for players who want to get started fast without hunting through pages of items for the prices of cheap equipment (and are a good value to boot), I want one of those waifu body pillows for the Butchering Axe, the Poppets are a great idea as cheap, easy-to-build, handy constructs, and I absolutely adore the new equipment tricks. There are also a number of reprinted items, but at least there's enough new material that it doesn't feel as egregious as when the Adventurer's Guide did it.
However, a bunch of the stuff seems like it was toned down or otherwise weakened in the interest of playing it safe. The biggest examples of this are probably the Armor/Weapon Modifications that were included. The basic idea is great, giving some customization options to players who want to add new effects or shiny bells to their equipment, but the system needed more room to grow and display what it could do rather than two pages overall. Most of the armor modifications aren't worth the price for the modification because the effects seem almost nerfed by committee, like the modification which dazzles a creature once per day if they fail a (admittedly good) DC, or the one which has a chance of sickening a creature if they happen to be using power attack and their mother just called last night and complained about how much better their brother is doing as a monster in The Dragon's Crypt, and have they met any nice goblin girls yet? The weapon modifications are a bit better off, but most of the modifications are miniscule bonuses that could have been boiled down to some additions to the Weapon Design Rules (from Weapon Master's Handbook) and a note on how to attach those additions to already existing weapons. As much as I'd want those rules to be expanded and refined into something really worthwhile, they're most likely just going to be forgotten as a bunch of weak non-magical weapon "enchantments".
It just feels... too toned down, in a way that's kind of hard to voice properly. Like the entire book was restrained, or the writers couldn't make a bunch of cool weird items for one reason or another. The first book had the feeling of being a treasure box of items that made your mind spin with the possibilities for each one. This one feels like a store shelf, where everything's been placed out for display in a very specific way, and you're just browsing for something that you want.
tl;dr Not the best book, but it's still fairly solid and has some good ideas and new tricks.
A cane can be a walking stick but not all walking sticks are canes.
I was under the impression that a cane (in the sense we're using it) is a type of walking stick? So, yes, not all walking sticks are canes, but all canes should be walking sticks? Either way, I think a little under three feet is about the right length for a cane, so I don't understand why it wouldn't work for a representation of a cane? I've certainly seen at least two people describing their hanbos as a walking cane, at least...
I'm failing to grasp the distinction. Both a cane and walking stick are lengths of wood used for support. It seems like a hanbo could be styled as a cane.
A hanbo is a short staff with no hook or handle at the end. The cane has a hook handle at one end, which can be used to disarm or grab at limbs. They are different weapons because of that.
Oh, I'm not against having Hanbos represent fighting with a cane, just pointing out that they weren't called canes in their description.
A quarterstaff is also commonly a walking stick as well.
Yeah, that's why I said they can act as a cane, not that they are out-and-out canes. But I imagine to most people, it's something that would be allowed, much as one would probably allow your masterwork longsword to have a hilt styled like a dragon's maw or your masterwork mace to have a stylized devil's head as the head of the weapon.
Anyone have any idea what the sickle-sword is supposed to look like?
Sounds like a flamberge with the ricasso higher up the blade.
Maybe, but if so why call it a sickle sword and not well a flamberge? Also why is it one handed then, since most flamberges seem to be like 2 handed greatswords? And how does the flamberge answer square with a weapon described as, "curves multiple times along its 3-1/2 feet. The
sickle-sword’s hilt is long and curved, and its blade bears a small
secondary grip partway up its length." The thing sounds much closer to the spiral rapier or like a few sickles soldered together end to end than the wavy blade of the flamberge.
Like, this is super hard to write since if that IS what the sickle sword is supposed to be then it's f!&&ing cool but the rest of the description, combined with the odd name make me doubt if that is their intent. Hopefully someone from the dev team or the contributor who wrote it will chime in and offer more insight into what this is supposed to be.
Until then:
I'll likely use that flamberge description though.
The thing sounds much closer to the spiral rapier or like a few sickles soldered together end to end...
This is probably the best way to describe the Irriseni sickle-sword (and is, in fact, why it's called that). Make sure to stick a handle in there somewhere, so you can twist it without losing fingers. ^_^
The Fauchard will, if it matches the original stats. From the name, I wouldn't be surprised if the Drow Razor does.
Yep, and some more.
Ohhh more? How many are there and are they just "reskinned" versions of scimitars/kukris? Seems like this companion may have some more unusual weapons and i'm curious to know if they bring anything interesting to the table mechanically.
The Fauchard will, if it matches the original stats. From the name, I wouldn't be surprised if the Drow Razor does.
Yep, and some more.
Ohhh more? How many are there and are they just "reskinned" versions of scimitars/kukris? Seems like this companion may have some more unusual weapons and i'm curious to know if they bring anything interesting to the table mechanically.
I thought that Ezren's "masterwork cane" was a fancy club that he used as his arcane bond, which made sense considering that it's one of the weapons a wizard con use with proficiency. Did that change?
The Fauchard will, if it matches the original stats. From the name, I wouldn't be surprised if the Drow Razor does.
Yep, and some more.
Ohhh more? How many are there and are they just "reskinned" versions of scimitars/kukris? Seems like this companion may have some more unusual weapons and i'm curious to know if they bring anything interesting to the table mechanically.
You also have the waveblade and spiral rapier.
I freaking love the waveblade. 1d6 18-20/x2 p and s with the monk special quality in the close weapon group.
Can somebody tell me about the Drow razor (or anything drow related)?
Drow razors are light exotic weapons that can be treated as if they were martial by creatures with the drow weapon familiarity racial trait. They deal extra damage on a critical hit or a sneak attack.
The spider-silk bodysuit is light armor, and is treated as if its maximum Dexterity was two higher by creatures with the drow weapon familiarity racial trait.
Is the wave blade part of the monk weapon group, or does it just have the monk property?
Luthorne wrote:
Drow razors are light exotic weapons that can be treated as if they were martial by creatures with the drow weapon familiarity racial trait. They deal extra damage on a critical hit or a sneak attack.
Is the wave blade part of the monk weapon group, or does it just have the monk property?
Luthorne wrote:
Drow razors are light exotic weapons that can be treated as if they were martial by creatures with the drow weapon familiarity racial trait. They deal extra damage on a critical hit or a sneak attack.
Cool, what's their damage / extra damage?
The only new weapon in the Monk Fighter Weapon group is the Sanpkhang.
The waveblade is in the Close Weapon fighter group though, which makes it a nice weapon for Brawlers to use.
Is the wave blade part of the monk weapon group, or does it just have the monk property?
Luthorne wrote:
Drow razors are light exotic weapons that can be treated as if they were martial by creatures with the drow weapon familiarity racial trait. They deal extra damage on a critical hit or a sneak attack.
Cool, what's their damage / extra damage?
The waveblade is only part of the close weapon group; the only weapon in the monk weapon group is the sanpkhang, both of which have the monk special feature.
Giving specific numbers for damage seems like too much information to include, though...
The only new weapon in the Monk Fighter Weapon group is the Sanpkhang.
The waveblade is in the Close Weapon fighter group though, which makes it a nice weapon for Brawlers to use.
Hmm that's interesting, thanks!
I'm curious to know how the damage on the drow blade works, and i'm also curious to know what exactly a sanpkhang is, googling it doesnt reveal anything relevant in images, so i'm assuming its something very unusual / created for pathfinder?
A sanpkhang is a dagger with special grooves designed for delivering poisons. Any injury poison delivered with one increases the save dc by one and Vishkanyas have racial familiarity with it.
I'm rather curious if having proficiency specifically in rapiers like elves do would make you proficient with the Spiral Rapier considering that it has the line saying that "Any effects that apply to rapiers also apply to a spiral rapier".
If the author of it is in here I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Love the fact that improvised weapons got some Major love. Too bad the book does not clarify whether or not throwing melee weapons makes them improvised weapons.
It only brings up the example of using Arrows as melee weapons.
So, is there anything particularly broken about the Dazzled condition? Like is there some way to upgrade it to Blinded or something that I don't know about? Dirty Trick Master can upgrade it to Dazed, but that only applies if the original condition came from another Dirty Trick.
So, is there anything particularly broken about the Dazzled condition? Like is there some way to upgrade it to Blinded or something that I don't know about? Dirty Trick Master can upgrade it to Dazed, but that only applies if the original condition came from another Dirty Trick.
Well, Huntmaster Cavaliers with a bird companion can get a free dirty trick (blind) attempt if the target is already dazzled. Other than that, I've got nothing.
So, is there anything particularly broken about the Dazzled condition? Like is there some way to upgrade it to Blinded or something that I don't know about? Dirty Trick Master can upgrade it to Dazed, but that only applies if the original condition came from another Dirty Trick.
Well, Huntmaster Cavaliers with a bird companion can get a free dirty trick (blind) attempt if the target is already dazzled. Other than that, I've got nothing.
So, why is the Burnished armor mod 1/day? It's not like a -1 to attacks/sight-based perception is more than a drop in the bucket at the level you could afford it.
So, is there anything particularly broken about the Dazzled condition? Like is there some way to upgrade it to Blinded or something that I don't know about? Dirty Trick Master can upgrade it to Dazed, but that only applies if the original condition came from another Dirty Trick.
Well, Huntmaster Cavaliers with a bird companion can get a free dirty trick (blind) attempt if the target is already dazzled. Other than that, I've got nothing.
So, why is the Burnished armor mod 1/day? It's not like a -1 to attacks/sight-based perception is more than a drop in the bucket at the level you could afford it.
It's not 1/per day, a creature can only be affected by it once per day. The ability itself is always on.
Dazzled is always lackluster. There are a lot of cool ways to apply it, such as spear dancer, mirror tricks, and so on, but a -1 to attacks just isn't worth it.
So, is there anything particularly broken about the Dazzled condition? Like is there some way to upgrade it to Blinded or something that I don't know about? Dirty Trick Master can upgrade it to Dazed, but that only applies if the original condition came from another Dirty Trick.
Well, Huntmaster Cavaliers with a bird companion can get a free dirty trick (blind) attempt if the target is already dazzled. Other than that, I've got nothing.
So, why is the Burnished armor mod 1/day? It's not like a -1 to attacks/sight-based perception is more than a drop in the bucket at the level you could afford it.
It's not 1/per day, a creature can only be affected by it once per day. The ability itself is always on.
Okay, same thing. Why can a creature only be affected 1/day?