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Arms and Equipment Guide (3e)

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Heroes need to be prepared for anything, which means having the right weapons and gear on hand at all times. The well-stocked pages of this book hold an impressive inventory of merchandise to get you into and out of all manner of trouble:
  1. A caravanload of equipment, trade goods, alchemical items, poisons, mounts, and vehicles;
  2. over 230 magic weapons and armors, such as the flameshroud axe, lance of the unending charge, and vampire hunter armor;
  3. over 125 magic items, including new artifacts, such as elixir armor, rings of the hive mind, the ghost rod, and the bag of endless caltrops; and
    rules for vehicle combat on land, sea, and air.
Within these pages, players and Dungeon Masters will find what they need to outfit their characters for nearly every contingency. To use this accessory, a Dungeon Master also needs the Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. A player needs only the Player’s Handbook.
 
*****
 
Product History

Your party of heroes are adventuring through the Underdark when you hear a rumbling beneath your feet. You take battle positions. Through the cavern wall opposite you, rock shatters as a massive purple worm emerges. You're simultaneously hit with a wave of stunning psychic force. The purple worm's mouth gapes open, and you can see that it's piloted by mind flayers - riding inside of its mouth.

Clearly, your DM just picked up a copy of the Arms and Equipment Guide (2003), by Eric Cagle, Jesse Decker, Jeff Quick, and James Wyatt.

So Much Glorious Stuff. New weapons. New armor. New materials from which to make armor and weapons. New equipment, outfits, food and drink, alchemical items, poisons, commodities, air vehicles, land vehicles, water vehicles, mounts (any book with a new magic item named the Amulet of Ooze Riding wins a special place in my heart). New rules and details for hirelings, mercenaries, pets, and guard creatures. New magic armor, weapons, potions, rings, rods, staffs, wondrous items, and artifacts such as Wave, Whelm and Blackrazor - including new rules for intelligent and cursed items.

Let it never be said that the Arms and Equipment Guide doesn't have enough content. Even better, it's surprisingly creative content that's just plain fun to use in a game. Mount your villains on an equine golem, give them armor that automatically disarms their foes and a bottle of beetle elixir armor, and they're going to end up being memorable foes.

What this book isn't is an exhaustive list of every bit of equipment out there. It is full of new and updated material, some of it reprinted or adapted from Dragon articles, and doesn't try to recap everything that's been printed before.

Good Advice. Interesting, I find the advice just as valuable as the new gear. There's wisdom and support for running low-magic (or no-magic) and low-tech campaigns. There's descriptions of how weapons, armor, and technology evolved. There's a brief treatise on trade goods and economic systems, including rules for what happens in a time of desperate need vs. a time of oversupply. There's extensive advice on vehicle use within a fight, focusing on how they're made, steered and damaged. Information about hiring guilds, mercenaries and hirelings is substantial, and a list of new commands for pets adds some useful variation to their role in a fight.

The result is a book that's as smart as it is useful. I find myself reading it as much for the game design insight as for the creative magic items and mounts, and that's something of a surprise and a triumph in a rules niche that's known for being dry and fairly straightforward.

I wonder if that's not something of a caution as well. By its nature, the supplement splits its attention between surprising and effective new high fantasy ideas (such as the aforementioned use of a purple worm mount and cyst saddle) and rather low-powered and gritty objects, such as new gear that gives a small bonus when adventuring. Finding the right thematic tone here is hard, and I think the authors worked hard to stay consistent throughout.

Source of Inspiration. You can tell a worthwhile sourcebook when you read it and immediately have multiple good adventure ideas. The Arms and Equipment Guide falls into this category, and then some. This isn't a book that every player in the group needs, but it's one that the DM will want to have and share; there are too many good ideas contained within to do otherwise.

About the Creators. Eric Cagle is a game designer who has worked for Wizards of the Coast and has been a frequent contributor to Dragon magazine. His work includes D&D, Star Wars, Warhammer, Pathfinder, and d20 Modern.
 
Jesse Decker is an author, designer and editor who is currently director of of Organized Play at Wizards.
 
Jeff Quick describes himself as the most experienced guy you've never heard of in the gaming industry, having worked for Wizards, WizKids, AEG, Paizo, and others.
 
James Wyatt is an award-winning game designer and a former United Methodist minister, and is one of the designers of the Eberron Campaign Setting.

About the Product Historian

History and commentary of this product was written by Kevin Kulp, game designer and admin of the independent D&D fansite ENWorld. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to kevin.kulp@gmail.com.

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

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Reviews (3)
Discussions (0)
Reviews
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June 12th, 2013
Arms and Equipment provides relatively little that the core rule book does not. Since D&D weapons are little more than carefully balanced stat lines the new new equipment is by and large not only more of the same, but not worth ever taking the exo [...]
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August 31st, 2006
Vast information for basic weapon types. Good work with pictures of the weapon described, wich is basically what i was looking for. I have my own damage system anyway, that i have created it using information from various Ad&d books. The add on ab [...]
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December 31st, 2005
The other Arms & Equipment Guide (same thing, different entry) had a review complaining about how pages were missing or out of order. I don't know if this one is the fixed version, or if both have been fixed now, but all the pages appear to be the [...]
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Product Information
Gold seller
Pages
160
ISBN
0-7869-2649-X
Publisher Stock #
881590000
File Size:
5.02 MB
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File Last Updated:
November 13, 2018
This title was added to our catalog on May 28, 2013.