Kevin Mickelson (Mask of Death, AaW BASIC-Series) is back at it again, and this time he’s really getting into the holiday spirit! A Miraculous Time brings us the return of Kale, Meeris, Ronius, and Willow, our four stalwart students from Exallizar Preparatory Academy. In this adventure they will receive their adventure “training” quite literally, beginning the adventure riding within a wondrous mechanical invention called a “train”, the party quickly finds themselves defending the moving vehicle from evil creatures bent on destroying the holiday spirit! This is one adventure you won’t want to miss!
It isn’t just the weather outside that’s frightful!
Now that winter has arrived in full force and the predators of the wild have grown desperate, it’s more important than ever that shipments of vital supplies be given proper escort – especially around the Midwinter holiday, when such shipments become all the more frequent!
A sleepy town on the far side of a mountain range is counting on you to make this Midwinter a joyous and healthy one!
Some greedy and cheerless monsters may have other ideas…
A Pathfinder compatible adventure for beginner players and game masters, 4 PCs of level 4.
The fourth chapter of a series of seasonally thematic modules that can be run to completion in 1-2 average sessions.
“A Miraculous Time” includes:
The fourth leg of the BASIC series
The return of Ronius, Willow, Meeris, and Kale, fully upgraded for level 4 play.
Magic items that give reference to prior adventures
A spin on an oft-overlooked character in the Christmas tradition
A grading system to let you know how well you’ve done!
This long awaited tome of items for the Pathfinder RPG promises to fulfill every GM’s treasure hoard requirements, and satisfy any player’s gear requirements. Paizo states that this book is a “must-have companion volume to the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook.”
We shall delve a little deeper into this volume and determine if this is in fact a book worthy of placement on your bookshelf directly beside your CORE RULES and BESTIARY.
First off, I would like to say that, for an older gamer, this book is very reminiscent of the Arms & Equipment Guide from AD&D, and the Aurora’s Whole Realms catalog for the Forgotten Realms. Both books proved invaluable to our gaming group over the years, so perhaps this new equipment book by Paizo will do the same.
Starting into the book, we immediately discover a sense of strict organization and division of items into various sections. This is good seeing as this book is well over 300 pages and packed to the brim!
Ultimate Equipment is comprised of 7 main sections:
Arms and Armor
Gear
Magic Arms and Armor
Rings, Rods, and Staves
Wondrous Items
Artifacts and Other Items
Appendices
One thing I feel important to mention is the handy color coded pages dividing the sections and also the key on the right hand side of the page which displays which sub-section of which chapter you are currently reading. Since this will ultimately be used as a reference guide, this key will save gamers hours of time at their tables and allow them to quickly locate and utilize the information which they seek. This in itself caused me to smile and say out loud “finally, someone has done an equipment book right.”
Arms & Armor
Armor
Weapons
Special Materials
At the start of the book we find a section on new special materials for weapons and armor, including steel that has “radiation”, elemental-forged steel, living wood, and armor made from the manes of magical beasts.
We then get nicely detailed sub-sections dealing with weapons and armor. Can you say Arms & Equipment Guide? Anything and everything you need to outfit your warrior for combat can be found here.
Gear
Adventuring Gear
Tools and Small Kits
Animals and Transports
Clothing
Entertainment and Trade Goods
Food and Drink
Lodging and Services
Alchemical Remedies
Alchemical Tools
Alchemical Weapons
Poisons
A very nice addition to the Pathfinder gear shopping experience are Class Kits, which help new characters purchase all the gear they would need to start out, at a nice discount. These are the kinds of things that would have helped us back in the days of AD&D where every character had to go shopping for a bedroll, backpack, tinderbox, rations, well…. you get the idea!
There are also a slew of new mundane and magical items in this book to help you justify the purchase to your spouse, (just in case you already own the entire Paizo Pathfinder catalog).
Magic Arms & Armor
Armor Special Abilities
Specific Magic Armor & Shields
Weapon Special Abilities
Specific Magic Weapons
This section begins with a large selection of magical special abilities that can be assigned to armor and shields. Following this is a large catalog of very specific magical armor and shields. Then we slice open the extensive weapons section containing many interesting and new magical weapons.
Rings, Rods, and Staves
Rings
Rods
Staves
These are some of the most commonly possessed magical items, but that doesn’t mean they have to be commonplace! In this section you get all the tried and true as well as a stash of new goodies to introduce to your players.
Wondrous Items
Belts
Body
Chest
Eyes
Feet
Hands
Head
Headband
Neck
Shoulders
Wrists
Slotless
Ah, one of my favorites due to the creative nature of many of these items. Wondrous items include everything from a standard belt or headband to dryad sandals and nightmare boots. There’s also a bunch of non-wearable magical items. All items in this book are organized both alphabetically and by price.
Artifacts and Other Items
Artifacts
Cursed Items
Intelligent Items
Artifacts of legend, powerful magical items which changed the course of history, and even cursed items and intelligent magical items are included in this section. On top of providing extensive items and information, this section also includes rules for creating and using intelligent items, dedicated powers, and personality quirks.
Appendices
Treasure Generator
Gems and Jewelry
Art Objects
To conclude the book, a GM will find a lengthy treasure generator, a random table for gems and jewelry, and finally art objects. You’ll also find a few other goodies here.
While this book would be difficult to read cover to cover by most, I find Ultimate Equipment to be a very useful companion to the core books, and indeed a well organized reference book which shall find itself at home directly beside my Pathfinder Core Rules book.
The BASIC Adventure series is here! These adventures are specially designed for Beginner Pathfinder players and game masters!
Kevin Mickelson kicks off the new series with “A Learning Time”, a Pathfinder compatible adventure for 4 PCs of levels 1-2.
Exallizar Academy is a place that, for generations, has trained the best and brightest heroes in the land. All of the students are the children of famous heroes, and as one of the fortunate attendees, it is your job to uphold the legacy of excellence attached to your family name.
As a student in Exallizar, you will be put through the paces like never before. This first year will see you and three strangers attempting the Gauntlet – a mysterious crucible that will put all of your studies to the test!
BASIC Adventure #1 available now for AaW subscribers, PDF due out soon!
The BASIC Adventure series is here! These adventures are specially designed for Beginner Pathfinder players and game masters!