Few PDFs I own elicit a wow reaction whenever a player sees it. This is one of those. The amount of research that went into this project has created a toolkit to allow DM's to represent a culture with rules that match. The weapons are broad and present sufficient flavour that mechanics are no longer the only issue for weapons and armour. The icing on this cake is that Stone to Steel finishes with a set of master tables allowing easy lookup and comparison of different items. Every gaming group should have access to this book!

Wow. I love this book. It provides a comperhensive and entertaining write-up of arms and armor for a variety of eras. Want to have an aztec camapign..look for the arms and armor within, Roman legionares..you are covered. Hoplites and vikings..also covered, and many more.

I must say this is a wounder product it really does help me with the making my gaming table more enjoyable with the use of different weapons and adds more real feel to it.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: EVERY THING!!!!!!<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: nothing it is a perfect product.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

A really very readable and comprehensive product, detailing and illustrating weapons and armour from various eras and locations of Earth history. Great for if you're running a game set in, say, an Exalted-like mixture of Mayan empire next door to Phoenician traders with some Stone-Age-level tribesmen milling about, and you'd like some authentic details and stats on their kit rather than, "eh, they're wearing leather. Or possibly scale. They had scale in Asia Minor, right?" Those playing in the Forgotten Realms probably need not apply.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

There are pictures of every weapon and armor, every single one. The stone age alone includes 70 pieces of equipment. Each pictures contains two or more weapons/armor. There is a key below indicating which is which. My only frustration is that the weapon table does not contain the key so it can take a few seconds to find the associated weapon.

Something I REALLY like is that, finally, someone put the hardness and hit points on their weapons! It takes minutes of flipping through the DMG to find the hardness/hit points tables and basically from there you must guess how many hit points a given weapon has based on their examples. Damage and repair can be an important part of the game but it is often overlooked.

Weapons are organized into historical ages; Sticks and Stones, Chariots of Bronze, Iron and Empire, Rome, the Far East and so forth. This can make it harder to find a particular weapon but the index contains a complete list of every weapon and there is also a table of contents at the beginning of each age listing the weapons from that age. It is a novel way of organizing a book but it makes it very clear without overwhelming the reader with page after page of weapons.

The stone age includes rules for amputation and infection. It was a harsh time. Going through the rest of the book there are a number of new rules for different weapons, barbed weapons, spikes, weapon breaking and so forth. Obsidian, used in the DarkSun setting, uses different rules which I like. Obsidian does more damage. The stuff is very sharp! However, it tends to break.

A good amount of space is dedicated to chariots. These look like a lot of fun. There are a variety of animals listed that can be used to pull them. Later there are animals, with stats listed, that were used in Rome.

Each age contains some information about famous warriors from that age, such as Alexander, Hannibal, Robert the Bruce and William Wallace ? which even includes a note on the use of wode, the blue body paint used by the Celtic warriors.

There is, of course, the infamous Roman gladiator detailed as a prestige class with period armor and weapons to use.

I wanted to skip right to the oriental section and when I reached it, it did not disappoint. There are some beautiful pictures of katars, punching daggers. Well versed in a long variety of weapons, there are a number of oriental weapons I have not seen before. Many look strikingly similar to the Star Trek Batleth and are, no doubt, the inspiration for the weapon. The Chinese rocket should appear in more martial arts movies as an excuse for explosions. The is a Mongol Horseman prestige class.

There is a picture of Raiden with holding Kabaal?s hooked swords but everyone knows that Raiden uses a staff. That is a Mortal Kombat joke. It is a good picture and depicts the Guang Ho Adventurer prestige class which uses meditation to gain combat bonuses and training to gain extra skills.

Finally Japan, the Ninja, the Samurai and the Katana, a weapon favored by far too many role players for its famous history and high damage. This book does much to offer alternatives to this weapon but it does not ignore or lessen the katana. I appreciate the fact the Samurai is depicted wielding a spear instead of his swords because it points out the fact that the Samurai did use other weapons.

The barding for the Elephant lists spell failure as N/A and, as a big fan of awakened animals I?m almost tempted to complain. But in over a decade of play, no elephant has ever made it to my gaming table so I?ll reserve judgment.

The dark ages are called the golden ages and I suspect that is because of many inventions that were used on battlefields all across Europe during this age. The more I look at this book the more I like it. There are sections on a woman?s place in war during this age, flaming clothing, tournaments, Chivalry and so forth. A lot of research has clearly gone into this book.

After the dark ages is a section on firearms and then we delve into magic with pages of new weapon abilities and then new magical weapons. Famous weapons such as Mjolnir (Thor?s hammer), Poseidon?s trident, the Nemean Lion Skin worn by Hercules, Odysseus?s Bow and finally, the king of legendary weapons Excalibur. There are even some new spells which affect weapons.

The following section deals with new materials, crafting weapons, maintenance and repair, optional rules. The book ends with an appendix of terms, a bibliography, a reprinting of the weapon tables in order and finally an exhaustive Index.

Catalogue: A catalogue is included as a separate file. I have not seen another product which includes a catalogue and I think it is a good idea. There are so many products on RPGnow that anything that gives me better access to the list of products available is welcome. Also, as a PDF, the catalogue hardly takes up much more space and as a separate file, I don?t need to print it. <br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The book has a lot of history behind a lot of weapons. Anyone can write up stats but in this product they have taken the time to research the background of many weapons. Now as for the stats, there are a lot of stats. There are hundreds of weapons in this book. If you can not find something pointy that is to your taste in here, you may have to turn to made-up weapons. The art is solid and clearly depicts every piece of armor and each weapon. There are a number of good rules for weapons, new prestige classes and new magical weapon abilities.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: There are no random tables for finding weapons and armor or their magical counterparts. I very much would have liked to have seen period tables that could substitute the weapon type and armor type tables in the Dungeon Master?s Guide when determining magical arms and armor. It?s a minor failing though and one that can be fixed easily enough just by rolling a d20 or d30 against the any period?s index of weapons.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

The aim of this giant resource (352 pages in PDF file, with the last page being the Open Gaming License) is to help dungeon masters make their games more realistic or provide fodder for interesting cultural accents that can be applied to a campaign world. The entire content of the book is focused on the wide variety of weapons, armor, and shields available at one time in different cultures; and on their development over the course of history. If you identify the culture and period of time that your campaign is set in, this product will help you along to imagine what weapons to use, what materials it might be made out of, and a potential prestige class or two. Even if you have never considered bringing this level of depth to your campaigns, you may find that this tour through history interests you none the less.

To provide some guidance on the content I will divide my comments by chapter. The discussion of the earlier chapters will contain slightly more detail so that you can get a feel for the flavor of the text before reviewing the mostly shorter summaries that follow.

Sticks and Stones Appropriately, ?Stone to Steel? begins with sticks and stones, the most basic of weaponry. (Remember, they can ?break my bones? even if the words, spoken by a non spellcaster, do no damage!) It covers what one might call technology, resources, and strategies for this initial period of time. For some reason, this chapter also includes general information about war and infection. The text tries to tie it to a discussion of the possibility of large scale conflict during this time period, but it still seems out of place in this chapter. Specific advancements that were particular to six different cultural entities (one if which is an ad hoc ?other? group) are then discussed. Mixed into the descriptions of weapons can be found two prestige classes based on Aztec culture. Both of them are melee focused, though one is more stealthy. Finally, this chapter ends by identifying some of the developments that led to the advancement of human society, such as particular materials, strategic tactics, and the first stage of using metals. This final section leads inevitably to the discussion in the second chapter.

Before moving to the next chapter a (nearly completely two page) table can be found listing the ?stone age? weapons discussed earlier in the chapter. This is immediately followed by a similar table for the ?stone age? armor. These tables appear following each chapter except the final two chapters.

Chariots of Bronze As befits a chapter with chariots in the title, this chapter begins with the domestication of animals and the ride skill. That discussion is followed by a section on copper and bronze. Five different regional discussions and one discussion of chariots rounds out this chapter. The chariot discussion provides interesting mechanics for everything from the impact of chariot riders on the speed of the chariot to crashes. In addition, there is a charioteer prestige class and six new charioteer based feats.

Iron and Empire There is a minor error in the table of contents for this third chapter (the iron heading appears twice). The chapter begins with a discussion of iron, followed by steel. The advances and quirks, of course including arms, of six different cultures are then described and discussed in the remainder of the chapter. These advances include an upgrade of chariots, which establishes that the author took that extra step to provide a complete product.

Rome This chapter begins with the Roman monarch and follows the development of the Roman Empire. The Roman legionnaire is presented as a prestige class and a new knowledge skill subset concerning the construction of military defensive and offensive devices. A prestige class is described based on German cavalry. The chapter also includes a discussion of gladiators, including presenting them as a prestige class, and the variety of animals involved in gladitorial contests.

The Far East This chapter contains a discussion of seven different cultures and contains a section discussing other important cultural contributors. There are an additional six sections of this chapter that explore in depth particular periods of time and provides information that helps a dungeon master bring those periods of time alive in a far eastern campaign. (Such as the Wudan Movement of China.) In addition, interesting combat options are discussed; such as a new combat maneuver called ?Sword Breaking?, the use of tassels on weapons, and a new feat called ?Improvised Weapon Training?. A prestige class based on horsemanship is presented which focuses on melee combat from horseback. This class looks very exciting to play and quite powerful in an appropriate campaign. An adventurer cult/gang prestige class is also presented which focuses on a steady progression in weapon proficiency/focus/specialization (with options for the player). In addition, you will find six new martial techniques available to class members. The discussion of Japan contains a ninja prestige class which uses a similar mechanic to the adventurer class that allows the player to make some choices during advancement. In addition, there are 11 ninja abilities to choose from. Of course, having discussed Japan, there was no choice but to present a samurai based prestige class, which also allows for player choices during character advancement. Finally, it should not go unnoted that the weapons and armor tables at the end of this chapter require a full eight pages.

A Dark Age, A Golden Age This chapter contains sections on both Christianity, Islam (two sections), and the Crusades. In addition, there is a discussion on the ?barbarian? European factions after the fall of Rome, the British Isles and Arthur, and the Vikings. A short discussion of sieges is included which is just enough to get you thinking about the uses of a siege without getting sidetracked from the main point of individual weapons, armor, and tactics that ?Stone to Steel? focused on so well. An interesting new mechanic for the use of flails is presented in this chapter. It complicates combat with a flail and makes them more difficult to use, but also allows the dedicated combatant to overcome these penalties by additional training as reflected in the selection of weapon proficiency feats.

Pagentry, Platemail, and Pistols The six sections of this chapter cover a wide range of considerations in combat and uses 14th - 17th century England and Europe as the focus. Interesting discussions of vassalage, serfdom, and peasantry can all be found in this chapter to help dungeon masters bring these economic systems to life in their campaigns. An optional variant rule concerning the benefits of different styles of helmets/helms is presented among the discussion of the developments in armor during this period of time. An NPC class for commoners proficient with archery is presented and discussed. A variety of firearms are presented and there are four new relevant feats. The chapter includes an Ottoman Empire based warrior prestige class. This class contains a mechanic for using tactic ?points? available to be used during combat for particular outcomes. A prestige class for those warriors that want to focus on one on one combat is available in this chapter, and includes seven new feats. In addition, a new ?Fencing? skill is presented. The weapons and armor tables that follow this chapter require seven pages.

Myth and Magic This chapter provides new magical weapon and armor special abilities. It then, listed by region, includes information on a number of mythical magical items (except for one item that is listed independently rather than by region). The chapter begins with a section on ?divine? items and eight new special divine properties that any divine item may have. Unfortunately, this section contains a dreaded, ?refer to Size Chart on page ???? reference. Following the divine properties, comes a section devoted to identifying the fifteen new magical item abilities for either weapons or armor. The list of magical items are derived from the following regions; America (5 items), Australia (2 items), Sub-Sahara Africa (2 items), Egypt (6 items), Asia (6 items), India (4 items), Japan (1 items), Mesopotamia (2 related items), Tuetonic/Nordic-Europe (6 items), Celtic-Europe (4 items), Rome (2 items), Greece (14 items), and Medieval (3 items). Next, the chapter contains a list of historical racial items for elves, dwarves, and briefly discusses a variety of ?other? races. Finally, the chapter provides descriptions for seven new spells.

Materials This chapter begins with a general discussion of a variety of mechanics that are impacted by an understanding of the materials used in item creation; such as item damage, deterioration, and calculation of the break DC of an item. The chapter then proceeds to a section which describes the properties an item receives based on what material it has been crafted out of. The section specifically discusses thirteen materials; including among others four different metals, dragon parts, and ice. The next section discusses the maintenance and repair of items. Finally, the chapter ends with a discussion of how to generate stats for an item, and provides tables for weight, hit points, and hardness.

Appendix The appendix discusses weapon size and damage, suggests optional mechanics for providing a more realistic combat experience, and contains a glossary of terms and bibliography. The optional mechanics range from a damage resistance armor system to an alternate fatigue system. The appendix close with a weapon and armor listing of the traditional d20 weapons and armors.

Master Tables The thirteen ?Master Tables? that follow the appendix collect all of the new material presented in this book. Each of the thirteen tables corresponds to a category of weapon or armor. For example, a table for ?simple melee weapons?, another for ?exotic weapons - ranged?, and another for ?shields and accessories?.

All in all this is an excellent product. It is thorough and well presented. It provides information on an area that few are inclined to independently research. Of course, after using this as a primer you may find yourself using the bibliography to do additional reading. At the very least, you may wonder why did you not enjoy history more in college or high school! No matter what, you will likely find it influencing your campaign elements in ways small and large.

To rousing gaming and ample rewards, I. Perez<br><br><b>LIKED</b>:

1. Plenty of content.
2. Organized.
3. Variety in cultural elements used which enhances usefulness to greater number of campaigns.
4. Stays focused on its purpose.
5. Attacks the sterility of generic campaign settings.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>:
6. While this is far from a serious problem, I would have loved some additional classes (prestige or otherwise) that were based in some of the time periods and cultures.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

From Stone to Steel is a history lesson and gaming resource book in one, which makes it perfect for a historian-gamer like me. This book details the evolution of muscle powered weapons from stone knives to early firearms and provides D20 statistics as well (3rd edition). In addition to the history, every weapon and type of armor is illustrated. Expanded rules on damage and wear to weapons and armor is present along with information of how various materials effect durability. Beyond basic weapons and armor, it also presents 12 historically based prestige classes, additional feats (mostly involving weapon use) and magic items.

One of the things that makes this book exceptional is that it does not restrict itself to Europe, with sections on Meso-America, Africa, Asia and Polynesia and Australia, as well as the more familiar Classical World and Middle East.

While not for everyone, military history buffs and those who like to add details to their game worlds will benefit from this book. It is a bit expensive by you do get your money?s worth with well over 300 pages worth of material.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: See above.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Some of the prestige classes and feats need minor adjustments (especially to align them with the 3.5 rules) but that is a small problem.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This is probably the best weapon/armor supplement I have seen outside of numerous historical books(which are useless as far as the game goes). Pictures of the majority of gear is included as well as descriptions of the gear and why and how it was changed.

The best feature, IMO is that the gear was broken down into historical periods, from stone age to Renassaince era, as well as a "fantastic/heroic" type period. This book is GREAT. There are so many weapons and armor types. I just printed up the master tables for reference use and it totalled 24 pages, of standard type, single space print.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Everything, now if they could do a book on equipment throughout the ages...<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Nothing, this book is excellent<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

A great (also in page count!) book on everything about warfare from primitive cultures to the first black powder weapons, including mythological and fantasy elements. It includes tactics for using a weapon instead of another, combat tips for tactical efficiency and historical infos on cultures that developed armors, weapons and tools of war.

This sourcebook will every fantasy campaign a significant boost in quality, providing a DM a boatload of data to customize cultures and enemies on a variety of different levels. Next time your players will meet an orc wargroup they will want to know if they're equipped with fur armor and an oxidian greataxe, instead of a bronze armored cloak and shield with a copper studded mace, or an iron charioteer armor and a two-handed sarissa.

A must have.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Great structure, clarity, and illustrations. Useful tips on practical use of weapons, armors, tools, and materials and technologies needed to manufacture them. Printer-friendly and ink saving layout is a plus.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Sometimes confusing data and stats for d20 use, but nothing you can't sort out on your own comparing text with tables.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>