101 Magic Armor and Shield Properties, as it says on the tin, a hundred and one new ways to enhance your weapons and armor. It starts with a lovely set of tables by power level in case you wish to randomly assign them. The powers range from minor (such as pleasant dreams, allowing you to rest well) to the amazingly powerful (exemplified by cheating death, which does just that but with style) so every campaign level should be able to find something of use here. There are a variety of class and race-themed enhancement that are interesting and should find favor with players who like improving a particular play style. A useful resource for any campaign in need of a new variety of armor and shield powers.

Disclaimer: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.

101 Magical Armor and Shield Properties by Rite Publishing

This product is 18 pages long. It starts with a cover and credits. (2 pages)

Armor and Shield Properties (13 pages) It starts with a random table for the properties in the book, there is one for minor, medium, and Major items. The rest of the book is taken up by the properties, each one is roughly one full paragraph, a few are shorter at only a few lines and a few are more than one paragraph long. A few of the ones I liked.

Allied Security – if next to a ally you can reduce your AC and give it to your ally, as a immediate action. Cavalier's Coat of Arms – can force a enemy to attack the wearer. Dread – gains several fear based abilities. Healing Catalyst – all healing cast on the wearing is increased. Knight's Move – swift action dimension door, like a knight moves in chess. Protected Flank – one enemy per turn can be targeted and they don't get flanking bonuses against the wearer. Unshrinking Steps – for a number of minutes each day the wearer can hover 2 inches over the ground and walk like normal, never coming into contact with the surface under their feet.

It ends with a OGL and ads. (3 pages)

Closing thoughts. The art work is color good as a whole. Editing and format are very good, I didn't notice any errors. There was a lot of very cool idea's in the 101 properties given, there was some meh idea's as well. But that is to be expected not everyone is going to like everything. I do think a few of them could have used another line or two of fluff talking about how the idea works, but that is a minor issue. So what's my rating? Well what is good is very good, I do think a few needed a bit more text and there was a couple of meh ones as well. So I am going to give it a 4.5 star review.

Trust me, I'm a Succubus.

101 unique properties to apply to magical armor or shields comprise the entirety of this book with the exception of some very nice interior art. This book begins with a table listing each property with its price modifier, either in gp or in equivalent magical bonus (utilizing the costs for such in the Core Rules). I like the ability to pick from this chart some nice armor properties to make my home campaign rewards be unique. This book is pure gold for those wanting to add a unique property rather than the old, overused, and rather boring +1 (or higher) AC.

One huge negative for me was the complete lack of some explanation of how or why each property works the way it does. For example: the first property described is the Absorbent Resistance. This is a property added to a shield that allows the shield to completely block a single melee attack using the combat maneuver rules. If the CMB succeeds the attack is negated and the opponent’s turn is ended, (in addition to other features). What I want to know is what about this magic shield causes this to occur? Is there a magical force field that extends outward from the shield to engulf the opponent, at least temporarily? It is made of some special sovereign-like glue that impedes the opponent’s actions? Why does it work this way? I know for my own games I do not and cannot simply hand wave things. The “it works because it’s magic” explanation doesn’t work on them. I’ve tried that in the past and it was met with scorn and indignation on the part of my players who (bless their greedy souls) want reasons for things. Some call that fluff or something similar as if to downgrade its importance. I consider these to be more important than any mechanic or rule. Now, I can make up my own reasons, but I might not have the time to do that. I realize that this would add to the book and potentially make it impossible to do 101 of them, thus negating the reason for assigning it to the 101 series. So I suspect that I will have to be content. And add content as I pick and choose the properties to apply to the rewards I hand out to my players.

I do realize that not everyone plays with my types of players. Most are content with the cool factor of what the property does and won’t ask why. For the GMs of those kinds of players this supplement is worth every bit of 5 stars. The artwork inside is nice and makes me want to print, cut out and post to 3x5 cards to write the armor descriptions, make up a few names for them and hand them out to my players as they find them. I am really not a big fan of the cover art however. It looks a bit too World of Warcrafty in the impossibly huge armor pieces. So I’m not a fan of that piece of art.

Given my reservations, but taking into account the nice array of properties nicely presented, I am giving this 4 stars.

This pdf is 18 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD and 2 pages advertisement, leaving 13 pages for the new enhancements to the magic items, so let's take a look, shall we?

First of all, I have to come clear - I HATE magic item inflation. I mean, come on, how cool is a flaming sword if half the kingdom sports one? How special is an armor plus 1 if the local blacksmith's apprentice wears one? In my home campaign ALL magic items that are not scrolls and similar one-use items have names. Subsequently, I have been a vocal advocate of unique magic items that bring back the wonder to the game, that make magic feel less like a stratified set of bonuses and do more than "cast spell xyz, 3/day". I'm not the easiest audience for magic items and this pdf has a hard standing with me. The pdf kicks off with a d%-table of the properties that shows you that base-price increments herein range from a modest 400 GP to the equivalent of a +5 bonus. The coolest design-innovation from 101 magical weapon properties has also been implemented here, i.e. the DCs, where applicable, of the items abilities, scales with level: DC=10 + 1/2 character level + attribute modifier. Excellent choice, as it keeps items from becoming obsolete.

An more in-depth look at the item-properties will immediately show you that some of the items deal with terrain control/economy of actions when it comes to movement - from additional 5-foot steps to 3/day extra move actions to a quality that lets you swim in an armor and breathe underwater, some nice new tactics are opened up by the new qualities. I expected as much, though Knight's move is quite cool, letting you dimension door a move as a knight in chess would. I also expected the two spiny enchantments that deal melee and ranged damage to attackers and the racial properties that work only for a set race (though their implementation is cool: Humans get a prophecy pool and add one to said pool for each 1 they roll - use the pool to change fate. Neat!). There are also enchantments that give you DR 5/slashing/piercing/bludgeoning respectively.

What I did not expect, was to get a new specific property for just about any armor-wearing class, INCLUDING APG, UM and even UC-classes like the gunslinger and samurai - very cool.

One of the most utilized enchantments, prismatic palisade, lets you once per day walk unscathed through anything prismatic and counter it. Iconic enchantments like energy absorption and minor shielding against draconic powers may be nice, but the pdf has more to offer: It's the enchantments that truly stand out, that make you immediately come up with cool ways to use them, that are for me the stars of this pdf:

Ironheart for example, makes you the ultimate tough guy, converting up to 100 points of lethal damage to non-lethal damage. (And no, munchkins, it doesn't work if you're immune to non-lethal damage.) And then there are the extremely costly last resort enchantments: Involuntary Retribution and Safeguards - one lets you heal, one casts destruction on your foes if they drop you to negative hp. Ouch. Even cooler, there's the martyr enchantment: You get automatically hit by foes and criticals confirm as well - but you also inflict maximum melee damage against that foe without an attack roll. No if that does not make for cool rp-moments and heroic sacrifices, what does?

Another favorite of mine would be the animated defense armor, that turns into an animated item when you are hit by negative conditions and follows a set of programmed instructions, i.e. carrying your dead body through a desert or shaking you from fascination. I can see the plots forming in my mind - very cool. And what about the shield that can be turned into an extremely fast sled for getaways or an armor quality that lets you phase through difficult terrain? There is also a quality to lessen the effects of penalties, halving them and mechanically, you get a lot of cool ideas. My very own silent stasr of this pdf, though, are the vital warding and dramatic counter enchantments, the former of which, if you use critical charts or decks, lets you roll twice and take the outcome of your choosing. While not for everyone, it's just one of 101 qualities and makes for a very cool thing to have if you use these rules. Dramatic counter lets you react once per day to an attack by vanishing in a cloud of smoke and makinga plus 20 acrobatics check to get far away. And Cheating Death is the ultimate enchantment for villains: 1/day negate anything that would kill the wearer, greater teleport and mindblank - OUCH!

Conclusion: Editing and formatting are very good, I only noticed a case of a missing comma and a tab too much, but neither impeded my understanding of the content. Layout adheres to the full-color, 2-column RiP-standard and the artworks we get for some of the items rock. The pdf is extensively bookmarked. What can I say? I was more than pleasantly surprised by this pdf. 101 magical weapon qualities was a nice pdf, but some of the enchantments felt a bit like filler - not so here. I think that each and every one of the properties has its place in a campaign and many actually offer enough evocative potential to make the enchantment worthy of its very own magic item - they just feel unique, stylish and cool and not like some run-of-the-mill bonus. I'd usually rate this 4.5. stars due to the minor glitches. BUT: For the added tactical depth these properties offer, and the supremely cool ideas crammed herein by RiP's mastermind Steven D. Russell, my final verdict will be 5 stars. Without the minor glitches I'd also add my seal of approval, but this remains a stellar offering that enriches just about any PFRPG game out there.

Endzeitgeist out.