A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Treasury of the Fleet

Treasury of the Fleet by Jason Nelson, Matt Goodall, Jim Groves, and Jonathan H. Keith is a supplement for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game published by Legendary Games. This supplement is part of the publisher’s Adventure Path Plug-Ins series which are intended to add additional content to Paizo Publishing‘s Adventure Paths, in this case #55 to #60, the Skull & Shackles pirate-themed Adventure Path. As a result, these items all have a pirate theme to them, and should be suitable for most similar settings. The book is covered by the Open Game License and therefore some of it is considered to be Open Game Content. The supplement is also available in a version for D&D 5E.

Treasury of the FleetThe supplement is available in PDF from RPGNow at the normal price of $4.99 but was purchased at the reduced price of $0.95. The PDF has 24 pages of which two pages are the front and back covers, one page is the front matter, one page is about the Adventure Path Plug-In series, one page is the Table of Contents, one page is essentially an introduction, most of one page is about the magic items in general and includes a table listing them all by value, with the items themselves starting on the same page, one page is the Open Game License and there are two pages of adverts (for the Mythic Monsters series and the Gothic Campaign Compendium).

There are 30 different magic items, one of them coming in two types. There are three Armour and Shields, nine Specific Weapons, two Rods, fifteen Wondrous Items and an Artefact, as well as four Weapon Special Abilities. One of the weapons is a cannon, a Large siege weapon, so isn’t exactly portable.

Treasury of the Fleet in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and the Table of Contents only lists the main sections, rather than the individual items. The various listings in the Table of Contents are, a bit oddly, in two different fonts. Admittedly the two fonts are different based on whether the listing is for a magical item section or not, so it may be logical but still, it’s a bit jarring. There are a number of external hyperlinks to relevant material on the official Pathfinder Reference Document and on d20PFSRD. It’s stated that the Table of Contents is internally hyperlinked, but that is not actually the case. Navigation of the supplement is a bit sub-par and could have been better.

The supplement is in full colour following a two column layout and no noticeable errors were found. Quite a few of the items detailed are nicely illustrated. It’s a shame that they all aren’t, but this is not unexpected and the supplement perhaps has a greater number of item illustrations than the average.

The book does have, quite naturally, considering the association with pirates, a number of items that are related to or involve guns and gunpowder; such may not be to everyone’s taste. The items themselves are all pretty interesting; they are not really just spells in an item, but have a range of unusual and interesting abilities. Even the weapons and armour, which tend to be the items that are least interesting. Of particular note is the Cannonball Breastplate which, amongst other powers, can turn into the semblance of a cannon and fire a cannonball, as well as turning the user to gaseous form and causing damage to those in the nearby area. The minor artefact can also be improved upon by using ioun stones on it. The different items cover a range of standard pirate tropes for items, which means that they actually feel pirate-y in nature. Although the Golden Gun feels rather more James Bond-y. Treasury of the Fleet is a good collection of new magical items that could be used to enhance Skull & Shackles but will work in any Pathfinder game based in the Golden Age of Piracy (some of the guns might be a bit unbalancing in campaigns without gunpowder).

 

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