Customer Rating: 
Summary: A good supplement making up for a lack of choices
Comment: When I first saw the selection of items in the PHB I was appauled at the lack of options for the players, I got the adventurers vault to be able to add more variety and choice to the equipment available in the game. For this purpose, the Adventurer's Vault is perfect. There are hundreds of new items contained within the pages, and as such, it adds to the choices availble for players and GM alike.
That said, there are a lot of strange design decisions that my group cannot figure out why they were made. Some items are virtually unstoppable, while others (with the same cost rating) are difficult to imagine a reason to use. Once again, Wizards places a lot of emphasis on specific story element scenarios (like water breathing, lizard killing, etc.) which brings to mind the years of "I found another useless item!" issue. Sure players can sell items they find, but any more, when I look at the way 4th edition is balanced, I can't say that they support the idea of selling and buying whatever items you want. The balance is geared toward a specific number of USEFUL items for each character per level (or each group per level), making some of the choices in this book very puzzling. Could I, as a DM, really equate the same balance of power to allowing a player to breath underwater, as allowing that same player to deal an extra 10 damage per round? These issues are still not addressed, and now that everything is so carefully mathematical, it makes using a lot of this book difficult.
In the end, if you are looking for more choices, you should get the book. If you are looking for GOOD choices, it's really a toss-up (though it does save the time and effort of custom items).
