This PDF is an awesome little friend to any DM creating treasures and item rewards for his low-level players. The new +1/2 bonus is a nice idea to keep prices down and fiddle with minor effects and bonuses on the gear that you don't have in D&D's or Pathfinder's core rules. Especially if you are playing E6 D&D/Pathfinder or similar "grim" d20 variants, this PDF provides cool stuff that feels magical without being the same old +2 whatever item. I highly recommend it!

If you've ever been bored with magic items at low levels, you need this guide.

The Genius Guide to: Loot 4 Less - Armor and Weapons is an 8-page PDF (7 pages if you remove the credits/OGL page) for the Pathfinder RPG written by Owen C. K. Stephens and published by Super Genius Games. This is the third of Super Genius Games’ Genius Guide line.

The layout is a screen-friendly landscape design, with cover art and 1-column on the first page and three columns on the rest. The two charts are easy to read and discussion about the new rules and design is placed in grey text boxes. The art is a mix of full color and black and white pieces, all of armor and weapons as is appropriate.

The focus of this product is on inexpensive, yet useful, magical armor and weapons. Scattered throughout are boxed “Behind the Counter” text discussing and explaining why things were done the way they were and how they work mechanically. The Genius Guide introduces a variety of weak, but useful, enhancements. Both the new enhancements and the mechanics are interesting and fun.

One of the most interesting ideas is a set on minor enhancements that can be added to any weapon or armor. Additionally, there is the spellforged enhancement which allows non-masterwork armor and weapons to accept other enhancements. There are three of each armors and weapons to give examples of what can be done with the enhancements included in this product.

This is the best of the Genius Guides so far, the “Behind the Counter” really sells it to me as I enjoy learning why and how people build things the way they do for a game. The combination of clever writing, good design and explanation of why makes for a great package. Super Genius Games has really found a winning formula here and I look forward to the next installment of Loot 4 Less.

Disclosure: 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.