Dark Mistress
First Post
101 6th level Spells by Rite Publishing
This product is 35 pages long. It starts with a cover and credits. (2 pages) The sixth installment of the 101 spells.
Next it jumps to the spells by class tables. (3 pages)
Bard – 28
Cleric – 26
Druid – 18
Sorc/Wiz by school
Abjuration - 6
Conjuration – 15
Divination – 6
Enchantment – 6
Evocation – 9
Illusion – 7
Necromancy – 10
Transmutation – 14
The following section gets into the meat of the spells. Here is a few that stood out for me good and bad. (25 pages)
Good
Be a Tree – you turn the target into a tree, forever.
Bestow Major Curse – Now these are some nice curses.
Coma – You do non lethal damage, if you drop them unconscious they stay that way until a special condition is meet or dispelled. On the surface it seems strong, thinking cast it then kill them. But it doesn't do much damage for a 6th level spell. So I think it is balanced and somewhat flavorful spell.
Death Gaze – You gain a gaze attack for a number of rounds. Nice fluff.
Divide and Conquer – You turn yourself into 300 little you's who can then do swarm attacks. I just found this one funny, it reminded me of Army of Darkness movie.
Fearsome familiar – Temporarily turn your familiar into a oversized dangerous version of it's self.
Kiss of Death – Kissing a target. If they fail a save, the die when the caster next makes a gesture or if the caster is killed. I just liked the spell, a last ditch effort to save yourself. Kiss someone and then if they kill you, they die too. I do think the gesture part should have had a range though, it doesn't mention one. Or perhaps linked their deaths until caster releases them. So if one died they both died. Cool spell though.
Pestilence – All those around the caster must make save or be struck with a disease. It has a list of diseases. It sounds like they get hit with all of them on the list. From that point on the disease seems to work like normal.
Return to the Grave – A cleric spell that forces a undead to return to it's grave and return to death on a failed save.
Sever the Source – Fairly long cast time, if target fails save they can no longer cast arcane magic or use supernatural abilities, until removed.
Solid Darkness – Create a blob of tarry like darkness that slows movement, deals minor damage to the living and heals undead inside. As well as function like Darkness.
Steal Breath – Save or target can not breath for 1 round per caster level. A pretty vicious spell but I love the fluff.
True Love – Makes two targets fall in love forever. If they go more than 24 hours with out touching they become sickened. If one dies the other gets worse. A kinda odd but wickedly fun curse.
Undecided
Offering of Rain – Causes rain to fall for one round per level, those in the rain get fast healing of 1 per 4 caster levels. Neat druid spell but I am not sure I like it working indoors. I know it makes it more useful but it just seems wrong to me. I think I might have liked it better if outdoors only but boosted a bit.
Pocket Paradise – This one just made me smile. You create a pocket dimension of a lush paradise, time spent there can cure many aliments.
Bad
Arcane Prohibition – Makes casting arcane spells very hard in the area, divine spell. Last 10 mins a level. Love the idea of the spell, so why is it in my bad list? Casting time of a single round combined with how long it last and the big failure chance to arcane spells makes it a cleric own wizard spell. I felt the casting time needed to go way up. Something clerics could cast in churches or such but something they had to set up in advance.
Transmute Elf to Orc – It turns a elf into a orc forever. The spell just seems odd and almost pointless. I suppose in some campaign settings it might make sense.
It closes with a OGL and 2 pages of ads.
Closing Thoughts. The art is black and white and pretty good. It has a old art style, I have seen it but not sure the name. It works well for the book. I didn't notice any obvious errors in the book. There was a few points where things could have been more clear but all and all not bad. Most of the spells where pretty good and well balanced. A few was meh, the only truly bad spell I thought was the Transmute Elf to Orc spell IMHO. In this one there was fewer spells I thought was very good though, but the ones that was very good where top notch.
I do have one comment about the art, it does show nipple in one of the art pieces. Personally I don't mind or care but I know some people do mind. It is tasteful artistic art though. So whats my rating? Well I thought this one was good, not great but good. I am giving it a solid 4 star. Maybe a 4.5, but I felt it wasn't there, close but not quite.
This product is 35 pages long. It starts with a cover and credits. (2 pages) The sixth installment of the 101 spells.
Next it jumps to the spells by class tables. (3 pages)
Bard – 28
Cleric – 26
Druid – 18
Sorc/Wiz by school
Abjuration - 6
Conjuration – 15
Divination – 6
Enchantment – 6
Evocation – 9
Illusion – 7
Necromancy – 10
Transmutation – 14
The following section gets into the meat of the spells. Here is a few that stood out for me good and bad. (25 pages)
Good
Be a Tree – you turn the target into a tree, forever.
Bestow Major Curse – Now these are some nice curses.
Coma – You do non lethal damage, if you drop them unconscious they stay that way until a special condition is meet or dispelled. On the surface it seems strong, thinking cast it then kill them. But it doesn't do much damage for a 6th level spell. So I think it is balanced and somewhat flavorful spell.
Death Gaze – You gain a gaze attack for a number of rounds. Nice fluff.
Divide and Conquer – You turn yourself into 300 little you's who can then do swarm attacks. I just found this one funny, it reminded me of Army of Darkness movie.
Fearsome familiar – Temporarily turn your familiar into a oversized dangerous version of it's self.
Kiss of Death – Kissing a target. If they fail a save, the die when the caster next makes a gesture or if the caster is killed. I just liked the spell, a last ditch effort to save yourself. Kiss someone and then if they kill you, they die too. I do think the gesture part should have had a range though, it doesn't mention one. Or perhaps linked their deaths until caster releases them. So if one died they both died. Cool spell though.
Pestilence – All those around the caster must make save or be struck with a disease. It has a list of diseases. It sounds like they get hit with all of them on the list. From that point on the disease seems to work like normal.
Return to the Grave – A cleric spell that forces a undead to return to it's grave and return to death on a failed save.
Sever the Source – Fairly long cast time, if target fails save they can no longer cast arcane magic or use supernatural abilities, until removed.
Solid Darkness – Create a blob of tarry like darkness that slows movement, deals minor damage to the living and heals undead inside. As well as function like Darkness.
Steal Breath – Save or target can not breath for 1 round per caster level. A pretty vicious spell but I love the fluff.
True Love – Makes two targets fall in love forever. If they go more than 24 hours with out touching they become sickened. If one dies the other gets worse. A kinda odd but wickedly fun curse.
Undecided
Offering of Rain – Causes rain to fall for one round per level, those in the rain get fast healing of 1 per 4 caster levels. Neat druid spell but I am not sure I like it working indoors. I know it makes it more useful but it just seems wrong to me. I think I might have liked it better if outdoors only but boosted a bit.
Pocket Paradise – This one just made me smile. You create a pocket dimension of a lush paradise, time spent there can cure many aliments.
Bad
Arcane Prohibition – Makes casting arcane spells very hard in the area, divine spell. Last 10 mins a level. Love the idea of the spell, so why is it in my bad list? Casting time of a single round combined with how long it last and the big failure chance to arcane spells makes it a cleric own wizard spell. I felt the casting time needed to go way up. Something clerics could cast in churches or such but something they had to set up in advance.
Transmute Elf to Orc – It turns a elf into a orc forever. The spell just seems odd and almost pointless. I suppose in some campaign settings it might make sense.
It closes with a OGL and 2 pages of ads.
Closing Thoughts. The art is black and white and pretty good. It has a old art style, I have seen it but not sure the name. It works well for the book. I didn't notice any obvious errors in the book. There was a few points where things could have been more clear but all and all not bad. Most of the spells where pretty good and well balanced. A few was meh, the only truly bad spell I thought was the Transmute Elf to Orc spell IMHO. In this one there was fewer spells I thought was very good though, but the ones that was very good where top notch.
I do have one comment about the art, it does show nipple in one of the art pieces. Personally I don't mind or care but I know some people do mind. It is tasteful artistic art though. So whats my rating? Well I thought this one was good, not great but good. I am giving it a solid 4 star. Maybe a 4.5, but I felt it wasn't there, close but not quite.
