NOTHING from the DMG - a waste of time, money, and trees One of my players got this for me, so thank Goddess I didn't waste my own money. It doesn't have the magic items from the Dungeon Master's Guide -- the very core of magic in D&D! Do I need to go into further detail, other than to say that while Wizards of the Coast was selling this book, they were already hard at work on version 4.New.Coke, which makes all 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 3.5 books OBSOLETE? They knew this when they sent this to press and knew it when they sold it to gullible buyers who didn't know they were being ripped off. Save your money! If you are reading this review, Wizards of the Coast (and their money-grubbing parent company, Hasbro) have already made it obsolete. PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS BOOK! Far better is "Pocket Magica (Arcana)," which contains all of the items from the 3rd edition DMG and many magic items which appear in books publiushed by other companies.
* One star out of five (and only because there's no half-star rating)
A Good Sourcebook
Simply stated, this is a good book.
To expand on this,the Magic Item Compendium is similar to the Spell Compendium in which it takes the magic item properties of many previously made source books(as early as Complete Adventurer to as late as Magic of Incarnum in the WOTC revised 3rd edition D&D series), as well as many prominent magic items. The book promises over 1,000, but if this is true I can't say. It does have many other properties right on, such as having lower cost items than featured in the main books. But what really caught this book for me is it's flexibility.
Sure, one could argue that having a book merely composed of magic items would be pretty much useless unless your campaign allowed for a lot of said magic items. But, these could be easily 'dispelled' by the books overall purpose: Taking all of the magic item properties of most of the source books previous to it's making and putting them in one handy tome. There are magic items (and their properties) from the Eberron setting, from the Draconomicon, from the Complete Adventurer book, all without having to buy the said source books! Even if one where to have said source books, the Magic Item Compendium focuses specifically on finding these properties and items within and presenting them in a well organized fashion for any DM looking to create new, more interesting items of choice.
Another handy feature of the Magic Item Compendium is giving items levels by price, and tables to show what priced magic item a player of x level would most likely have.
This book, like many wotc books, isn't without it's woes. It has about 7 pages worth of errata, or corrections, on the wotc site, meaning if you want the book to be free of error you'll have to retrieve the errata file. Not to mention that while the magic items and are neatly organized and easy to read from, all of the meat and bones new rules (magic item levels, creating relics and item set bonuses, etc.) are all in the back of the book, after all of the actual items the rules refer to have been presented.
Other than a few minor complaints, the book is solid and a good addition to any campaign.
Good It's good but still unorganized like the Spell Compendium, the table helps a lot though, unlike in the spell compendium. They should have added the page of each item in the table in my opinion.
Love It!! Great Gift IDEA!!! I loved it as soon as I pulled out of the box and touched the shiny new cover. Opening it up was like entering a whole new world. The items are fresh and exiting. Easy to read and a joy to locate a new item that lays in wait for the unsuspecting adventuring party.
The only thing I have to say that is negative is: it would be nice to have pictures of every item. But how realistic is that? But how NICE would that be too!!!! With all the other details and research a DM has to do, it is nice to look at an image and describe it, alter it, or just hold up the book and say, "it looks like this."
So, if you can live without a picture of every item... then this book is what you need next to you at every game session! There are new and refreshing items...something for everyone!
Happy Gaming and I really think you will love this addition to your DM collection.
Finally a D&D Book That's Worthwhile For a while there, it seemed like WOTC was so into their 4th edition that they would not be publishing anything good for a while. But alas, here is something really good! this suplement has a ton af great information in it. Really great idea for adding powers to magic items, creating small ones and large ones. No matter how strict the DM is about magic, eventually you will be able to create some of these great ideas. And for the DM, hey, the bad guys need good armor too!
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