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54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
More things than you can shake a stick at, September 23, 2008
This review is from: Adventurer's Vault: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement (Hardcover)
In a first for D&D, the equipment book is actually the first non-setting supplement released; this is unusual, as the Arms & Equipment Guide for 2e and 3e were released in the middle of each edition's product cycle.
In this not-terribly-thick book, you'll find exactly two chapters: Gear, and Magic Items. Production values are pretty high, and the artwork is mostly all-new; I don't recall any recycled art. Some pictures are captioned, others are not, which is irritating.
Gear is non-magic items...new weapons, new armor, mounts, vehicles, alchemical items, etc. The weapons are the most detailed, filling weapon group/type combinations left open from the PHB, along with new properties, like Brutal (reroll any weapon damage dice of n value or lower). The armor isn't too different from that released in PHB, but seems better, I haven't quite figured out if they pay for the improvements some other way. The mounts are kind of a mixed bag, they're nice and fantastic, but their carrying capacity is rather limited. Vehicles I haven't looked at too much, and alchemical items seem useful.
Most of the rest of the book deals with magic items, of all the varying types, from the plussed (weapons, armor, amulets, implements) to the random, including more potions. There are a great many of each type, including a boatload of magic weapons. Many old standbys made it in, from the sunblade to the decanter of endless water to the various bags of tricks.
It's nice to have this out so early, when it's most useful. The one main flaw is also a virtue, in that the magic item properties really aren't excessively useful in most cases; many properties are once/day powers that are nice, but limited in utility. On the other hand, this means there aren't going to be One Best Item of each type for a given level, and even if you get kind of a weird item, at the very least you're getting the base enhancement bonus your rolls or values.
One useful inclusion is a "move the magic" ritual, that allows you to move an enchantment from one weapon to another, so if that +2 Sunblade drops on a scimitar, but you want it on a khopesh, you're good to go. There are suggestions on making unique magic items, but nothing specifically crunchy about that, and, of course, there are no new artifacts.
On the whole, a pretty good book. While not absolutely perfect in every way, it's definitely a worthwhile buy for any 4e player or DM.
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61 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Mediocre Tome of Treasures..., September 24, 2008
This review is from: Adventurer's Vault: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement (Hardcover)
...but it depends on what you're looking for. As a DM, i found this book mostly just a huge list of charts for magic items (or pseudo-magic items, the alchemical stuff), most of them recreating the combat conditions we're all familiar with from the PHB: i.e. ongoing fire, acid, thunder, cold damage, Stun, Immobilize, Daze, Save Ends, etc etc.
There is almost no interesting descriptions, unless you consider the above list interesting. Many people do, in fact.
If you loved the magic item listing in the PHB, and the way magic items were handled in general, you will love the Adventurer's Vault. If you thought that 4e magic items were bland, repetitive, and not as good as the fascinating items that permeated 3rd edition (and earlier) then you won't like this book either. For instance, i'm pretty sure there is no Deck of Many Things in the Adventurers Vault; it's way outside of the point of giving you an advantage in a fight, which is almost solely the focus of magic now.
Nor does it even touch on the topic of Cursed Items, but maybe that is something waiting for the DMG 2.
For me, i'm going to take a few ideas from this book and just make my own magic items for the players, ones that have more varied abilities. Such as a Wand of Magic Missiles with charges that DOESN'T miss and inflicts 1d4+1 points of damage per charge expended, as well as adding a permanent +1 bonus to the wizard's normal "roll to hit" magic missile. He misses half the time anyway.
Or a Rod of Atrocity for the warlock.
See, the 4e magic items just add some fancy descriptive name to a magic item, then slaps on acid damage, or fire damage, push one square or daze until the end of the next turn, and pretend that it's something special. It's not. It's just the same old effect that can be accomplished hundreds of other ways from spells, powers, exploits, and other magic items.
This is not a bad book and has its uses, but know what you're buying before you purchase it.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good addition to the three core books!, January 14, 2009
This review is from: Adventurer's Vault: A 4th Edition D&D Supplement (Hardcover)
I'm a DM for my group of players new to DnD, and I myself haven't been playing for too long. We are using a small sub-set of the material that Wizards has put out so far, (just the DMG, MM, PHB and this book) in order to solidify the rules of the game for everyone.
I got this book for Christmas and have really enjoyed the additional library of magic items that it affords my PCs. It seems like when you need a weapon that really fits a character (or class, or race or what-have-you....) its in here, and if it isn't you can re-flavor one for your group. I personally prefer to reflavor a weapon/item than to create an entirely new one in order to preserve balance. I'm a software developer by profession and have been into all sorts of gaming for 15 years, it takes a lot of dedicated thought to craft a new item completely from scratch without overpowering it or allowing some sort of exploit. Plus, it really hurts to tell your players you have to nerf something that you gave them after they've figured out an effective maneuver with it.
This book is affordable enough that the gain in balanced items (or examples for the more creative among us) is well worth it.
Get it!
-Clyde
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