Chapter 6: Equipment
When you leave the safety of a city or other refuge for the wilderness and the unknown, you must be prepared. Being ready means you need protection, arms, and tools to see you through potential challenges, dangers, and hardships. An unprepared explorer all too often winds up injured or lost—or worse—so gear up for the hazards you expect on your adventures. When you create a 1st-level character, you start with basic clothing and 100 gold pieces to spend on armor, weapons, and adventuring gear. This is an abstraction; your character probably doesn’t walk into a store one day with a bag of coins—unless you just came into an inheritance or won a tournament of some sort. Rather, the items you start with, and any gold you have left over, might come your way as gifts from family, gear used during military service, equipment issued by a patron, or even something you made yourself. As you go up in level, you acquire more gold that you can spend, not just on mundane gear, but on fabulous magic items as well. Here’s an overview of the contents of this chapter.
✦ Armor and Shields: Essential gear for protection in combat.
✦ Weapons: The basic tools of combat for many characters, from swords to polearms.
✦ Adventuring Gear: The tools of the adventuring trade. Look in this section for everburning torches, flasks of oil, backpacks, and spellbooks. This section also discusses arcane implements and holy symbols, useful for the powers of some classes.
✦ Magic Items: When you have the gold to spend on magic items, this section shows you what’s available. You’ll find magic weapons, armor, and more.
Armor and Shields
Armor provides a barrier between you and your foes—or, put more bluntly, between you and death. Every class provides access to one or more armor proficiencies, and it’s in your best interest to wear the finest armor you can. This section includes information on shields, which improve your defensive capabilities.
ARMOR TYPES
Armor is grouped into categories. These categories can help you decide what armor is best for you. Your class tells you what kinds of armor you’re proficient with. You can take feats to learn the proper use of other kinds of armor. If you wear armor you’re not proficient with, it makes you clumsy and uncoordinated: You take a –2 penalty to attack rolls and to your Reflex defense. Putting on a suit of armor always takes at least 5 minutes, which means that it’s an activity you can undertake only outside combat (likely while you’re taking a short rest). Armor is defined as either light or heavy. Light armor is easy to move in if you’re proficient with it. Leather armor and hide armor are light armor. When you wear light armor, you add either your Intelligence or your Dexterity modifier to your Armor Class, whichever is higher. Heavy armor is more restrictive, so your natural agility matters less. When you wear heavy armor, you don’t add an ability score modifier to your AC. Chainmail, scale armor and plate armor are heavy armor. Leather Armor: Leather armor is sturdier than cloth armor. It protects vital areas with multiple layers of boiled-leather plates, while covering the limbs with supple leather that provides a small amount of protection. Hide Armor: Thicker and heavier than leather, hide armor is composed of skin from any creature that has a tough hide, such as a bear, a griffon, or a dragon. Hide armor can bind and slightly hinder your precision, but it’s light enough that it doesn’t affect your speed. Chainmail: Metal rings woven together into a shirt, leggings, and a hood make up a suit of chainmail. Chainmail grants good protection, but it’s cumbersome, so it reduces your mobility and agility. Scale Armor: Overlapping pieces of highly durable material, such as steel or even dragon scales, make up scale armor. Despite its heaviness, scale is surprisingly easy to wear; its straps and buckles make it adjustable and able to fit snugly on the body, allowing flexibility and agility. Mundane scale armor uses metal plates. Plate Armor: The heaviest type of armor, made up of shaped plates of metal or similarly resilient material, plate provides the most armor protection. The cost for its superior fortification is mobility and agility.
SHIELD TYPES
As with armor, you need the proper shield proficiency to use a shield effectively. When you use a shield, you strap it to an arm and sometimes use the hand on that arm—your shield arm and shield hand. Shields grant a shield bonus that you add to your AC and to your Reflex defense. If you’re not proficient with a shield, you don’t gain the shield bonus to your AC or Reflex defense. Light Shield: You need to use your shield hand to wield a light shield properly. You can still use that hand to hold another item, to climb, or the like. However, you can’t use your shield hand to make attacks. Heavy Shield: When you use a heavy shield, you gain a greater bonus to your AC and Reflex defense, but you can’t use your shield hand for any other task.
CLOTHING
Clothing may make a character- defining how they move about in the campaign, who they interact with, and how their character is perceived. It is always a smart idea to wear clothing that defines how your character will be perceived by non-player characters. For example, a character should wear their finest clothes when meeting royalty, while they should opt for more rugged gear for hiking into the mountains. A character may carry multiple outfits with them as they travel for making multipurpose outfits in case of unforeseen meetings with either kings or mountains. There are several options for clothing- defined by purpose and culture. The elves for example may wear robes while dwarves prefer suits.
JEWELRY
Jewelry can help add a small amount of a wide range of bonuses to a character. Rings might help with Religion or Arcana, crowns may increase Diplomacy, etc. Plus, jewelry can add accent pieces to a character's outfit and assist clothing or armor, or even weapons in some cases- by amplifying their effects. For example, an archery ring can add a bonus to attack rolls for bows, while a crown may increase a character's Diplomacy.
CLOTHING, ARMOR, AND JEWELRY TABLES
Weapons
When you confront villains and monsters in their lairs, you often end up in situations that can be resolved only with arms and magic. If you don’t have magical powers, you had better have a weapon or two. In fact, you might want a weapon to back up or even augment your powers.
WEAPON CATEGORIES
Weapons fall into four categories. Improvised weapons aren’t weapons you train with—they’re objects you pick up to hit someone with. Punching or kicking someone is also considered an improvised weapon. Simple weapons are basic, requiring little more skill than lifting and hitting with the business end. Military weapons are designed for skilled users. Balance and precision are important factors when using military weapons, and someone without the proper training can’t use them effectively. Superior weapons are even more effective than military weapons but require special training to use. You can learn to use a superior weapon by taking the Weapon Proficiency feat. Weapons in all four categories are further categorized as melee weapons, which you use to attack foes within reach of the weapon, or ranged weapons, which you use to fire at more distant enemies. You can’t use a ranged weapon as a melee weapon. A melee weapon with the heavy thrown or the light thrown property counts as a ranged weapon when thrown and can be used with ranged attack powers that have the weapon keyword. Finally, weapons are classified as either one-handed or two-handed. A one-handed weapon is light enough or balanced enough to be used in one hand. A two-handed weapon is too heavy or unbalanced to use without two hands. Bows and some other weapons require two hands because of their construction. Some one-handed weapons are light enough for you to use in your off hand while holding another one-handed weapon in your other hand. Doing this doesn’t let you make multiple attacks in a round (unless you have powers that let you do so), but you can attack with either weapon. Other one-handed weapons are large enough that you can keep a good grip on them with two hands and deal extra damage by using them as two-handed weapons.
WEAPON GROUPS
Weapon groups are families of weapons that share certain properties. They’re wielded similarly and are equally suited to certain kinds of attacks. In game terms, some powers and feats work only when you’re attacking with a weapon in a specific group. If a weapon falls into more than one group, you can use it with powers that require a weapon from any of its groups. For example, the halberd is both an axe and a polearm, so you can use it with powers that give you an additional benefit when you wield an axe or a polearm. Axe: Axes are weapons that have bladed, heavy heads and deal vicious cuts. An axe’s weight makes it fine for delivering crushing blows. Bow: A bow is a shaft of strong, supple material with a string stretched between its two ends. It’s a projectile weapon that you use to fire arrows. Bows take training to use effectively, and they can be extremely deadly in expert hands. Crossbow: Essentially a small metal bow mounted on a stock and equipped with a mechanical trigger, a crossbow is a point-and-shoot projectile weapon. Crossbows are popular because they require little training to master, yet the heavy pull of the metal bow gives them substantial power. Flail: Weapons in the flail group have a flexible material, usually a length of chain, between a solid handle and the damage-dealing end of the weapon. Hammer: A hammer has a blunt, heavy head with one or more flat striking surfaces attached to a haft. Heavy Blade: Blades are balanced edged weapons. Heavy blades share some of the precision of light blades and some of the mass of axes. Heavy blades are used primarily for slashing cuts rather than stabs and thrusts. Light Blade: Light blades reward accuracy as much as force. Pinpoint attacks, lunges, and agile defenses are the strong points of these weapons. Mace: Much like hammers, maces are blunt weapons that have a heavier head than handle, but they’re more balanced than hammers. They’re useful for delivering crushing blows. Pick: Weighted toward the top like a mace or an axe, a pick has a long, pointed head made to pierce and create deep wounds. Polearm: Polearms are weapons mounted at the end of long hafts. All polearms also fall into another category of weapon, usually axe, heavy blade, or spear. Polearms are reach weapons. Sling: Slings are leather straps used to hurl stones or metal pellets. They are projectile weapons. Spear: Consisting of a stabbing head on the end of a long shaft, a spear is great for lunging attacks. Staff: In its most basic form, a staff is a long piece of wood or some other substance, roughly the same diameter along its whole length. Unarmed: When you punch, kick, elbow, knee, or even head butt an opponent, you’re making an unarmed strike. A simple unarmed attack is treated as an improvised weapon. Creatures that have natural weapons such as claws or bite attacks are proficient with those natural weapons.
WEAPON PROPERTIES
Weapon properties define additional characteristics shared by weapons that might be in different groups. Heavy Thrown: You hurl a thrown weapon from your hand, rather than using it to loose a projectile. A ranged basic attack with a heavy thrown weapon uses your Strength instead of your Dexterity for the attack and damage rolls. High Crit: A high crit weapon deals more damage when you score a critical hit with it. A critical hit deals maximum weapon damage and an extra 1[W] at 1st–10th levels, an extra 2[W] at 11th–20th levels, and an extra 3[W] at 21st–30th levels. This extra damage is in addition to any critical damage the weapon supplies if it is a magic weapon. Light Thrown: A ranged basic attack with a light thrown weapon uses your Dexterity. Light thrown weapons don’t deal as much damage as heavy thrown weapons, but some powers let you hurl several of them at once or in rapid succession. Load: Ranged weapons that loose projectiles, including bows, crossbows, and slings, take some time to load. When a weapon shows “load free” on the Ranged Weapons table, that means you draw and load ammunition as a free action, effectively part of the action used to attack with the weapon. Any weapon that has the load property requires two hands to load, even if you can use only one hand to attack with it. (The sling, for example, is a one-handed weapon, but you need a free hand to load it.) The crossbow is “load minor,” which means it requires a minor action to load a bolt into the weapon. If a power allows you to hit multiple targets, the additional load time is accounted for in the power. Off-Hand: An off-hand weapon is light enough that you can hold it and attack effectively with it while holding a weapon in your main hand. You can’t attack with both weapons in the same turn, unless you have a power that lets you do so, but you can attack with either weapon. Reach: With a reach weapon, you can attack enemies that are 2 squares away from you as well as adjacent enemies, with no attack penalty. You can still make opportunity attacks only against adjacent enemies. Likewise, you can flank only an adjacent enemy. Small: This property describes a two-handed or a versatile weapon that a Small character can use in the same way a Medium character can. A halfling can use a shortbow, for example, even though halflings can’t normally use two-handed weapons. Versatile: Versatile weapons are one-handed, but you can use them two-handed. If you do, you deal an extra 1 point of damage when you roll damage for the weapon. A Small character such as a halfling must use a versatile weapon two-handed and doesn’t deal extra damage.
WEAPON SIZES
Weapons are sized based on middle-sized creatures (like elves and humans). Because of this, not all weapons can be wielded by creatures of any size. Weapons that are two-handed medium weapons for example means that a medium sized character (like a drow) may use only one hand to wield the weapon, while a small character (like a dwarf) must use two hands, and an extra small character (like a gnome) cannot wield the weapon. A medium character may use a large weapon- in turn- if that character uses both hands. The only exceptions are shortbows (size small) and longbows (size medium) - which require both hands; but extra small characters may still use shortbows and small characters may still use longbows. Characters may use weapons smaller than their size. For example, a medium character may chose to use a dagger (size extra small).
WEAPON TABLE
Adventuring Gear
From meals to torches, adventuring gear is essential to your party’s success. You’re assumed to start with basic clothing, and before your first adventure, you should equip yourself with weapons, armor, and other gear. Standard Adventurer’s Kit: This kit includes all the items grouped beneath its entry on the table: a backpack, a bedroll, flint and steel, a belt pouch, two sunrods, ten days’ worth of trail rations, 50 feet of hempen rope, and a waterskin. Ammunition: Arrows come in a quiver that holds thirty, crossbow bolts come in a case that holds twenty, and sling bullets come in a pouch that holds twenty. Ammunition is used up when you fire it from a projectile weapon. Arcane Implement: Wizards use orbs, staffs, or wands as focus items for their spells, while warlocks use rods or wands. Using a nonmagical implement confers no benefit. You can purchase a magic implement to gain an enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls with your arcane powers. A staff implement can also function as a quarterstaff. Climber’s Kit: This kit includes all the items grouped beneath its entry: a grappling hook, a small hammer, and ten pitons. When you use a climber’s kit, you gain a +2 bonus to Athletics checks for climbing. Everburning Torch: This torch never stops burning. It sheds magical light but no heat, so you can stow it in a bag or a pouch. You can’t set fire to anything with it. Holy Symbol: This is a finely crafted symbol of precious metal that clerics and paladins use as a focus for their prayers. Using a nonmagical holy symbol confers no benefit. You can purchase a magic holy symbol to gain an enhancement bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls when using your divine powers. Journeybread: This magic bread fills the stomach and provides all necessary nutrients with only a few small bites, so you can carry food for a long journey without weighing yourself down. Ritual Book: Ritual casters use a ritual book to store the rituals they have mastered. Ritual Components: These items are needed by ritual casters. You purchase as many gold pieces worth of components as you need or can afford. See Chapter 10 for more information. Spellbook: Wizards keep the daily spells, the utility spells, and the rituals they’ve learned in a spellbook. Sunrod: This minor magic item sheds bright light to a radius of 20 squares for 4 hours before burning out. Thieves’ Tools: To use the Thievery skill properly, you need the right picks and pries, skeleton keys, clamps, and so on. Thieves’ tools grant a +2 bonus to Thievery checks to open a lock or to disarm a trap.
MOUNTS AND TRANSPORT
Mounts and vehicles can improve your speed or increase the amount you can carry when you travel. This table shows the price for various kinds of transport, as well as the weight of each can carry. For mounts, the carrying capacity shown is the normal load, heavy load, and maximum drag load for the creature (see “Carrying, Lifting, and Dragging,” below). For vehicles, it’s the maximum amount of goods you can haul with the vehicle. Mounts are categorized by size in the same way that weapons are categorized. Mounts- like vehicles- sized medium are available to size medium or size small characters. Unlike weapons, characters cannot ride mounts smaller than their size, but may use them as pack animals- for example, a human (size medium) may use a llama (size small) as a pack animal, but cannot ride it- meanwhile both dwarves (size small) and gnomes (size extra small) can ride it. Vehicles are different however. Vehicles that require mounts (such as dog sleds or chariots) may transport a number of characters equal to the mounts carrying the device. For example: a sled pulled by ten sled dogs (all size extra small) may carry ten deep gnomes (all extra small). These numbers can mix too. Imagine each size is given a numerical rating. Extra Small characters/mounts are size 1; Small characters/mounts are size 2; Medium characters/mounts are size 3; and so on. Thus, a draft horse (size large or 4) may carry a chariot for one dwarf (size small or 2) and two gnomes (each size extra small or 1). Aerial and Nautical vehicles follow a different rubric. Instead of having assigned sizes, they designate the size of the crew allowed to be onboard holding both a minimal and maximum number- but following the same number system for mounts/characters (meaning a ship with a size of 30 means it could hold 30 deep gnomes or 15 dwarves, 10 humans, etc.).
CARRYING, LIFTING, AND DRAGGING
Adventurers carry a lot of gear. When that quantity becomes extreme, it might be enough to slow you down and otherwise hamper your capabilities. The amount you carry should rarely be an issue, and you don’t need to calculate the weight your character is hauling around unless it’s likely to matter. More often, you’ll need to know how much weight you can push or drag along the ground—are you strong enough to slide the statue covering the trapdoor? This information is contained in your Strength score. Multiply your Strength score by 10. That’s the weight, in pounds, that you can carry around without penalty. This amount of weight is considered a normal load. Double that number (Strength × 20). That’s the maximum weight you can lift off the ground. If you try to carry that weight, though, you’re slowed. Carrying such a load requires both hands, so you’re not particularly effective while you’re doing so. This amount of weight is considered a heavy load. Five times your normal load (Strength × 50) is the most weight you can push or drag along the ground. You’re slowed if you try to push or drag more weight than you can carry without penalty, and you can’t push or drag such a heavy load over difficult terrain. This amount of weight is referred to as your maximum drag load. Your DM might rule that you can’t carry certain objects at full speed no matter what your Strength score is, just because they’re so bulky or unwieldy. Your DM can also ask you to make a Strength check to push or to lift something heavy in a stressful situation, such as in the middle of combat.
MOUNT AND VEHICLE TABLES
Other Items
Apart from the previously mentioned equipment, there are various items which hold magical or mystical powers. These might include implements for wizards and warlocks, musical instruments, or special locations or buildings with magical powers. There could be cursed furniture even. As characters encounter objects they might believe to have mystical properties, the player may make an Arcana Check to determine its power. To pass the check, the player must roll a total minimal score of 10+ the Item's Tier.
BOOKS
Books can be an incredible source of knowledge, and owning them does no further good than simply reading them. Characters are smart who visit bookstores and libraries in settlements to gain bonuses to skills. All Skill Checks have equivalent books which can be found at any library and give its reader +1 bonus to its designated skill. In addition, books may contain prayers to deities (which any character may use- though these books must be kept on the character or transcribed into a journal for the character to be able to make these prayers). Other books contain maps (thus giving the character increased Streetwise and Perception while in the region(s) included in the atlas. (But like with prayer books, these atlases must be kept on the character.)
PACKS
Packs allow characters to hold several items on their back, their mount, or other means. These can be incredibly handy as they typically increase a character's carry capacity and allow a character to keep extra outfits and weapons. Every adventurer for example should have at least a backpack so they can carry extra items such as rope, blankets, or food. There are two kinds of backpacks: regular (just called "backpack") and the external frame backpack. A character's Can Carry Capacity is based on their Strength Score. For extra small characters (like deep gnomes), the Can Carry Capacity is equal to Strx1. For small characters, the Can Carry Capacity is equal to Strx2.5. For medium characters (like elves and humans), the Can Carry Capacity is equal to the Strx5. For large characters (like minotaurs), the Can Carry Capacity is equal to Strx7.5. A Backpack allows a character to increase their Can Carry Capacity to the next level (meaning a deep gnome with a backpack has a Can Carry Capacity of Strx2.5 instead of Strx1). External Frame Backpacks increase this to two level-ups (meaning an elf with an External Frame Backpack has a Can Carry Capacity of Strx10). For mounts, only saddlebags alleviate load and act as Backpacks (so one level-up) for the creature.
KITS
Kits are small items or bundles of items which pack serious abilities. For example, a First Aid Kit acts as a healing surge that does not require a roll to pass the check, or a Spelunking Kit grants users increased Perception and Dungeoneering in underground environments. All available kits are: Magic Kit (+1 Arcana), Spelunking Kit (+1 Dungeoneering), Engineer's Bag (+1 Dungeoneering), First Aid Kit (Free Healing Surge as a Standard Action), Archaeology Kit (+1 History), Orientation Kit (+1 Perception), Lock Picking Kit (+1 Thievery).
IMPLEMENTS
Implements act as weapons for spellcasters- granting them increased magic and acting as their main source of power. Without their implements, spellcasters take the same penalty to Arcana as non-spellcasters. Outside of specific spells, spellcasters may use their implements to substitute Arcana checks for other checks. Wands may be used to replace Dungeoneering and Insight checks with Arcana, Staffs may be used to replace Diplomacy and Intimidate checks with Arcana, and Orbs may be used to replace Perception and Initiative checks with Arcana.
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
Musical instruments give non-spellcasters arcane abilities through music. These items magnify the Arcana of songs and allow the users to act as assistants for the Arcana of dances. Alone however, a musician- or bard- may use these instruments in single usage to assist with skill checks. Bards are special musicians who specialize in a particular instrument. Characters who train in an instrument for long enough become Bards and gain a bonus to their instrument's power equal to +3 instead of +1. To become a Bard, a character must have Arcana chosen as a selected Trained Skill. To use an instrument, a character makes a Skills Check in a skill that instrument is designed for. Musicians receive a +1 bonus to the check and Bards receive a +3 bonus to the check. Instrument sizes follow the same usage rules as weapons, meaning small sized characters may use a size small or size medium instrument. All instruments give a bonus to Song and Dance Spells equal +1 Arcana for musicians and +3 Arcana for Bards.
ARTIFACTS
Several items big and small fall under the category of artifacts. Some of these items can be found in other lists- like magic armor and weapons. These items can be small (like magical jewelry belonging to an elven goddess) or large (like a stone temple of a particular demigod). Some items may even be cursed and- instead of granting their users with increased abilities- may do more harm than good.
MUSICAL INSTRUMENT AND ARTIFACT TABLES