Batman, famously, has no super-powers—he relies on an assortment of gadgets in his fight against crime. The same is true of his allies, including Tim Drake, the third Robin. Robin doesn’t necessarily have a huge assortment of gear at his disposal, but he has a few gadgets that I thought he really couldn’t do without.
Batarangs
What Bat-Family member can go without batarangs? They’re practically the signature weapon of the Dark Knight and his pals. They may simply be bat-shaped shuriken, but none of the current weapons in PF2E quite seemed to fit the bill, for one very important reason: none of them had Disarm.
Now, Disarm is a fairly potent trait to give a long-range weapon, it’s true. But looking at the comics, that’s one of the primary ways Robin uses his ‘rangs—he’s always knocking guns out of people’s hands with a well-tossed batarang! As long as the DM limits how many batarangs the players have access to, it should be fine, right?
Robin’s Staff
Easily the most iconic piece of equipment Tim Drake uses, the bo staff is a key part of Robin’s fighting style. In fact, it’s become so iconic that it’s now the default weapon of pretty much any on-screen Robin—Dick Grayson uses a staff during his Robin days in both the Teen Titans cartoon and the live-action Titans series, despite the fact that he’s more traditionally associated with escrima sticks.
The problem with using a regular bo staff for the Tim build I’ve worked up is that it’s not Agile or Finesse, so you can’t substitute your Intelligence with it when using Devise a Stratagem. That locks you out of using Strategic Strike. As a fix, this custom bo staff has Agile (at the cost of a smaller damage die and the removal of Reach).
In the comics, Tim’s staff is capable of sending out an EMP (though I think he only does that, like, once). This magic staff can send out a burst of electricity as a nod to that.
Robin’s Cape
Here’s a fun one: Robin’s got a fancy cape in the comics. Chuck Dixon must’ve realized that a cape is a bit of a liability in a fight, so he jazzed up Robin’s with a quick-release catch on the neck that allows the Boy Wonder to ditch the cape if someone grabs it. That’s not all, though: the quick-release button also sends an electric current through the cape, causing fibers inside it to contract. This, in turn, makes the cape wrap tightly around whoever grabbed it.
Does that make scientific sense? Probably not. Is it a cool effect that we can easily duplicate with the Paralyze spell? Absolutely!
The other thing about Robin’s cape is that it has some defensive capabilities—we see him use it as cover from bullets and other projectiles. I think it’s supposed to partially Kevlar? A straight bonus to AC won’t work since item bonuses don’t stack, but I thought letting players use it to perform a weaker version of Deflect Arrow would be a good way to model its bullet-deflecting properties.
It Came From Off-Panel! 