Rating: 
Summary: Hardly worth it...
Review: If you are expecting a comprehensive guide to arms and equipment, this is the wrong book for you. It brushes past those subjects and touches on a bunch of other stuff that has nothing at all to do with the title.
Rating:
Summary: Not so much Arms and Equipment as ...
Review: The Short of it boils down to the one line, "you don't need a book that lists every single weapon avaliable. " And I'll agree with that. No book should list every single piece of equipment as only a sourcebook about arms and equipment should carry that sort of information, rather I would prefer to see a bunch of poorly thought out rules and reprints from dragon magazine bound and hardcovered. Why anyone would want a book full of arms and equipment is beyond me, I for one LOVE reading through 12 different books trying to find a specific piece of equipment. I personally think this book is SO MUCH BETTER than the 2nd edition AoE guidebook, which was burdened down with pages and pages of descriptions of weapons, armor, equivilencies and rules for their use. They had a hirelings section, it was great because that is certainly what I bought an arms and equipment book for, hiring people. Perhaps I could hire a few writers to actually write what the title says.
Rating:
Summary: Not so much Arms and Equipment as ...
Review: The Short of it boils down to the one line, "you don't need a book that lists every single weapon avaliable. " And I'll agree with that. No book should list every single piece of equipment as only a sourcebook about arms and equipment should carry that sort of information, rather I would prefer to see a bunch of poorly thought out rules and reprints from dragon magazine bound and hardcovered. Why anyone would want a book full of arms and equipment is beyond me, I for one LOVE reading through 12 different books trying to find a specific piece of equipment. I personally think this book is SO MUCH BETTER than the 2nd edition AoE guidebook, which was burdened down with pages and pages of descriptions of weapons, armor, equivilencies and rules for their use. They had a hirelings section, it was great because that is certainly what I bought an arms and equipment book for, hiring people. Perhaps I could hire a few writers to actually write what the title says.
Rating: 
Summary: Some useful stuff, but also ommissions
Review: This book is what it claims to be. No more, no less. It has a lot of new equipment for PC's and some handy rules for the use of it. The most useful part of the book and the only part that really differs from the Players handbook and the DMG is the vehicle rules and stats which I had felt was lacking greatly in the original core books. Unfortunately in the charts for weapons, items, magic items etc, this book does not include any of the stuff from the Players Handbook or the DMG which means you either have to make your own lists or refer to both books if you want the basic stats for any items. This is a small niggle but, it is always nice to know which chart to refer to when you need to know something. It is a good sourcebook, but if you are wanting anything that is particularly new or exciting then it is not worth the cover price. This book is more an expansion on the old stuff than anything new.
Rating:
Summary: Skim it then Buy it.
Review: We purchased this online thinking that it would go into detail on how arms and equpiment are created along with more materials for weapons and armor. Instead, the book is difficult to follow since it spreads out information (as did most 3.0 books) and left us more confused than we started. As a book titled Arms and Equipment one would expect at least more equipment. However, it was better searching through 2.0 Arms and Equipment and just port the stats over to 3.0 rules. Being a Player Character that wants to create armor on his own it is really difficult finding the cost for raw materials along with time frame and conditions in which these materials can be constructed. This takes out certain role-playing aspects from the game. As a mage you can certainly have all sorts of information when creating a rod, but when it comes down to basic blacksmithing you are better off coming up with rules of your own. Unfortunately due to my frustration I was not able to find the pros of this book and will not be able to address them. If anyone knows otherwise please let me know at mail@darzon.com
Rating:
Summary: Skim it then Buy it.
Review: We purchased this online thinking that it would go into detail on how arms and equpiment are created along with more materials for weapons and armor. Instead, the book is difficult to follow since it spreads out information (as did most 3.0 books) and left us more confused than we started. As a book titled Arms and Equipment one would expect at least more equipment. However, it was better searching through 2.0 Arms and Equipment and just port the stats over to 3.0 rules. Being a Player Character that wants to create armor on his own it is really difficult finding the cost for raw materials along with time frame and conditions in which these materials can be constructed. This takes out certain role-playing aspects from the game. As a mage you can certainly have all sorts of information when creating a rod, but when it comes down to basic blacksmithing you are better off coming up with rules of your own. Unfortunately due to my frustration I was not able to find the pros of this book and will not be able to address them. If anyone knows otherwise please let me know at mail@darzon.com
Rating:
Summary: It's okay - for the price is it worth it really?
Review: Yeah, it's the Arms & Equipment book for the 3.0 and probably the 3.5 series unless Wizards decides to update it to 3.5 with new wacky items. Basically the book is a little handbook of mercenaries and followers, gadgets like spyglasses and wacky little knives that your characters hold in between thier fingers, and other strange equipment like that. There's also rules for mounts and vehicles. However, this information is fine and dandy but I couldn't justify paying the price the Wizards wants for this book for some wacky gadgets and expanded rules that are already explained in the PHB and DMG. If you have the extra cash, or someone is looking to give you a gift, ask for this book but don't expect much. But if you're spending your own hard earned cash, look somewhere else. This isn't like the 2nd edition Arms & Equipment book that gave rules for cool thief tools and castles. It's just a DM guide to wacky gadgets, vehicles, and mounts. Oh yeah, and how to hire hirelings and mercenaries. Whatever....
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