Review: Fantasy-Tech 2 - Weapons of Fantasy

Get it!

About a month or two ago, I reviewed the first volume, itself a pretty good book, especially if you are the type who prefers fully developed "catalogs" to "toolkits" for designing new equipment. In short, while the first installment ranges from "ok" to "good" to "nifty," this book is almost a must buy. Read further to find out why I think so.

Small table of
contents.

This book is small, but everything is gold, so you easily get your dollars worth. This is a 14 page PDF, 3 pages for front matter, 1 page for back matter, leaving 10 pages of stuff. The primary theme of this book is weapon customization. Think of it as a fantasy supplement to Low-Tech Companion 2. Of the 8 sections in this book, 5 are customization options for weapons, and 3 are catalogs. Aptly, there is little besides weapons in this book, but there are shreds of fluff here and there, and new perks and techniques here and there for characters too. Looking at each of the sections one by one we have:

• Full-Metal Weapons - Turning hafted weapons, poles, and polearms into metal. The benefits and drawbacks are subtle, but important. They can be synergistic especially if you like playing with certain detailed rules, like The Broken Blade, where heavier, harder weapons will last you longer and bare heavier hits better.
• Double-Ended Weapons - The kinda cool trope of a double ended weapon. They can do some pretty high damage, often have better balance on parries,  and allow for a special version of dual weapon attacks.
• Giant Swords - Kinda like an expansion of the rules in Low-Tech Companion 2 for very big weapons, but with options that can be more generous in terms of weight and ST requirements, so that heroes with "modestly" high ST in the high teens can wield swords taller and wider than themselves. The detail is pretty good, and despite the name of the section, there are rules for making giant versions of other types of weapons.
• Absurd Rapiers - Probably the most meh section for me to be frank. This is a short list of weirdly long swords. Good for people... who want very long swords... maybe you can make it interesting when combined with Giant Swords though.
• Serpent's Fang - Hollowed out blades that can inject poison, venom, or other fun stuff into those you injure. A convenient improvement for people that like using poisoned weapons.
• Multi-Blades - A wacky option for weapons gives them multiple blades (and an optional rule extends this option to other types of weapons as well) to do immense bonus damage.
• Quicksilver Swords - Mercury filled metal weapons that do more damage by dynamically changing the balance of weight as it flows. The extra details in the book make it a lot more interesting than I make it sound.
• Diabolical Whips - Even though it's a catalog, this is actually my favorite section of the book. Diabolical Whips are whips... that can actually do a modicum of damage in a serious fight. Neat if you ever wanted to do a Castlevania adventure, but felt weird subbing in flails or kusari for whips.

The book ends with a half page index... which is nifty. 

I reiterate, and stake my name on this opinion, that this book can't disappoint... Qualifier: Unless you absolutely abhor fantasy and want to only ever run totally realistic games or really wanted a bunch of ranged fantasy weapons: there are none (but maybe fantasy ranged weapons can be a later installment in the series?). There's not much to extrapolate here for games where realism matters. For everyone else, get it.