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Bastion Press: Best Books?
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<blockquote data-quote="JustKim" data-source="post: 5129853" data-attributes="member: 5478"><p>Alchemy & Herbalists and Spells & Magic are both 3.0, very early 3.0. I didn't pick them up until much later because they were overpriced at the time at $25 for under 100 pages. I think I got them for $5 and I imagine retailers are practically giving them away now.</p><p></p><p>They're worth picking up for cheap if only for a flip through. There's some nice art and the flavor is worth borrowing. The rules content is wretched.</p><p></p><p>Alchemy & Herbalists introduces a system for herbalism and alchemy that demands such investment, it will almost certainly dominate the campaign and be an enormous sink for any alchemist character. It's unfortunate, then, that the alchemy is piddly from level 1 to 20. If you strip away all of the feats and skills and retool the costs, you are left with some interesting items. You are left with many more poorly designed items and rules misunderstandings, such as pastes that give objects +2 to Fortitude saves against fire.</p><p>It's clear that the book was written with love, but not with a love for the d20 system.</p><p></p><p>Spells & Magic is a Netbook style collection of alternative magic sources. Some of them, like the jewel and mirror chapters, are pretty cool. Almost all of them have been done better in the 8 years since the book was published. Half the book are new spells and magic items that support the new magic systems, so between flavor, PrCs, spells and items, each magic source gets about 9 pages. I can't really say much about the rules content in this one, but I'm willing to bet it's underpowered and requires some fiddling, if not as much as Alchemy & Herbalists.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JustKim, post: 5129853, member: 5478"] Alchemy & Herbalists and Spells & Magic are both 3.0, very early 3.0. I didn't pick them up until much later because they were overpriced at the time at $25 for under 100 pages. I think I got them for $5 and I imagine retailers are practically giving them away now. They're worth picking up for cheap if only for a flip through. There's some nice art and the flavor is worth borrowing. The rules content is wretched. Alchemy & Herbalists introduces a system for herbalism and alchemy that demands such investment, it will almost certainly dominate the campaign and be an enormous sink for any alchemist character. It's unfortunate, then, that the alchemy is piddly from level 1 to 20. If you strip away all of the feats and skills and retool the costs, you are left with some interesting items. You are left with many more poorly designed items and rules misunderstandings, such as pastes that give objects +2 to Fortitude saves against fire. It's clear that the book was written with love, but not with a love for the d20 system. Spells & Magic is a Netbook style collection of alternative magic sources. Some of them, like the jewel and mirror chapters, are pretty cool. Almost all of them have been done better in the 8 years since the book was published. Half the book are new spells and magic items that support the new magic systems, so between flavor, PrCs, spells and items, each magic source gets about 9 pages. I can't really say much about the rules content in this one, but I'm willing to bet it's underpowered and requires some fiddling, if not as much as Alchemy & Herbalists. [/QUOTE]
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