Every now and I again I will be reading a blog or post on the net somewhere and it will lead me to review something. There is a lot of stuff out there to be reviewed so occasionally it is up to fate by what I randomly come across that leads to a review. This was not so much fate but just something I read and I could not recall if I had reviewed these. I had not so here I am now reviewing it. No one ever asks me why I review the things I review but here is one of the ways it happens anyhow.

Loot 4 Less Volume one Rings and Things is a PDF by Owen KC Stephens. It is published by Interactive Design Adventures. Not enough people seem to know who he is. He has done some really good things for D&D and Star Wars and is on the short list of game writers that if I see or hear his name is attached to a product I know I at least want to look at it. The PDF is one of the many small PDFs on the market; this is only a dozen pages long. It has a simple lay out and no art. The black and white PDF though does have good book marks.

The series is only concerned with creating cheaper new magical items. I like that the focus is just for items worth less then twenty five hundred gold. This makes it a great PDF that supports the low level game and also the low magic game. It would be very interesting to have a low magic campaign that never has items worth more then the twenty five hundred limit.

The book starts with new armor enchantments. It introduces at the half bonus. Some of the magical enchantments are just not worth a +1 bonus mark up so combine any two of them to get the +1 bonus or just have one and use their plus one half chart pricing system. There are ones like fleet that allow a person to run faster in heavy armor that are quite useful. Others like Elusive that just gives a armor class bonus to ranged attacks might get a bit complex to have different armor class for different types of attacks. Restful is very nice as with a fort save a person can sleep min medium or heavy armor and not be fatigued. Those types of enchantments are very useful.

Some of the weapon enchantments also have the half bonus idea that armor uses. I like the proficient enchantment which has no penalty for no proficiency use. A willing weapon can be drawn as a free action or sheathed as a free action if one has quick draw feat. There are some specific weapons and one of the neat ones is the fencing sword. It is a rapier that has a critical range of one greater though it follows the rules of stacking critical ranges as if was enchanted.

Lastly the book has a few magical rings. There are some good and simple to use ones like the Ring of Agility that grants a plus one bonus to all dexterity based skills. The ring though has to be warn for a week before the magic takes effect. There is a nice sidebar on the pricing of the item too. There is the ring of clotting that automatically stabilizes the wearer when they go to negative hit points. That can safe lives easily. There are a lot more rings then armor and weapons and many like the Ring of Literacy are nice utility items.

The Loot 4 Less series really shows off Owen KC Stephens? creativity and very solid understanding of the d20 magic system. It is just one of those really nice books that I feel players and DMs will find plenty of useful magical items in but nothing that one has to be fearful of being game breaking.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Loot 4 Less Volume I: Rings & Things is a magic item sourcebook from IDA. The zipped file is 0.27 megabytes in size, and contains a single PDF of the product, and a Microsoft Word version of it also. The Word file has a total of eleven pages worth of text, while the PDF file is twelve pages long, including two pages for the covers, one for the credits/table of contents, one of ads, and one for the OGL. The PDF has full bookmarks, and no art aside from one piece with the ads.

The first volume of Loot 4 Less covers magic rings, weapons, and armor. The purpose of the Loot 4 Less series is to deliver magic items that have permanent bonuses (as opposed to charged items or one-shot uses), and are always under 2,500 gp. Luckily, since weapons, armor, and rings are mostly permanent items normally, this is easily done here. Even so, the author is very careful to show his thinking with pricing in various cases, giving plenty of ?Behind the Counter? sidebars to show why things cost what they do.

The section for weapons and armor introduces the concept of weapon/armor magic qualities that are minor enough so as to only be worth a +1/2 magic bonus. Even better, a single +1/2 magic bonus can be applied to a non-masterwork item, and without a pre-existing enhancement bonus (anything more, however, requires the usual masterwork +1 item to take any enchantments). It then gives us a number of new minor magic qualities (including the brilliant spellforged property, which allows an item to have any number of magic qualities without being masterwork or having an enhancement bonus), as well as example magic weapons and armor. While not quite as groundbreaking as the preceding section, the rings section gives a number of new magic rings that fulfill minor but useful functions for characters.

Altogether, Loot 4 Less does in a dozen pages what so many other products can?t do in a hundred: it introduces innovative new material and mechanics that spur the imagination. Whether you need balanced magic for your low-level group, or a low-magic fantasy world, the material here is absolutely perfect for characters that need cheap but useful magic items. There?s no group of PCs out there that won?t benefit from having some Rings & Things. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: This product provided innovative new rules that mesh perfectly with low-level play, being extremely interesting while still maintaining game balance. The sidebars that dot the book also explain succinctly the reason the author came to the prices he did.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: There wasn't really anything I disliked about this book. It set out what it wanted to accomplish, and did so masterfully.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

New properties for armor and weapons, and rings, all at the low power (and low cost) end of the spectrum. The properties are clearly explained and appear to be reasonable and complete, and the reasoning behind their pricing and rating is explained. As if that weren't enough, they are also useful. Excellent!

I've never said this before, but this is a bargain at twice the price ($1.25).<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: It is useful both in terms of the items and properties it presents and the reasoning behind them, so you can develop your own as well.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: 2 or 3 editing mistakes, but no big deal.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This ebook contains a great assortment of low level, low cost magic items. None are overly powerful, but all are very useful. and it's not just magic items - there's also armor and weapon enhancements as well. The rings especially have seen a lot of use in my games. I find this book a great value for the $$.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: I liked how the pricing formulas are explained.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I've done some minor tweaking on pricing, but that's probably just cause I'm overly picky. I would have preferred there was not a security 'feature' on the pdf, as I am unable to view it in my preferred non-Adobe PDF reader. Would have been 5 stars without that problem.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

One thing I've always found frustrating is that there is ALWAYS tons of magic items in the high gp range (which makes sense of course), but I've always wanted some cool items in the low-mid range to add to campaigns. HERE THEY ARE! So many things you can add to your campaign, and adapt as you need to.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Quick, to the point, nothing confusing, and very adaptable.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: N/A!! Keep it coming!<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>