Arcana Evolved

[Kanegrundar]

I use the AE races and classes alongside the standard classes and races. The only thing I don't allow between the two are the spellcasting classes have to stick to their own spells. No D&D wizards using AE spells and vice versa.

Kane

 

[Dagger75]

Hey, Morpheus, just curious, but where in Florida are you?

Follow-up question: Any room in your game group?

We are in Tampa

I am one of the players in the game.

As for the system I am not impressed. I am playing a Mohj Magister. Supposed to be a powerful caster type. What I have seen is the magic system is fairly weak at low levels. The first level spells seem useless. Every damaging spell has a to hit roll and then they don't do all that much damage. I had a better chance to hit and do damage in melee. The most powerful spell Mudball did 1d6 + 2 of damage and blinded the target for a round. BUT I had to do a normal attack roll. With my 12 Dex thats only a +2 to hit and 99% of the time they are in melee so its actually a -2 to hit. And a typical encounter will have a 15 AC, I need to roll an 17 or better just to hit them and then there is usally a save involved. Most of effects could be handled by Daze, if that spell exsited I could have done something. The Dimishing and heightening was neat. I always diminshed cause it took me so many tries to hit.

Maybe I was playing it wrong or missed something but I felt weak and useless in the group

 

[Henry]

...I am playing a Mohj Magister. Supposed to be a powerful caster type. What I have seen is the magic system is fairly weak at low levels.

Suggestions: Fireburst is a good spell if there's a flame nearby. Also, Distraction is almost as good as killing a creature outright for one round per level, especially if its will save is likely to be poor. Mind Stab is also good against non-undead and non-constructs - subdual damage is still damage, and it's a ranged touch attack. Finally, do not forget about seeker (0-level), as it gives a bonus to attacks AND damage. Heightened and combined with, oh, say, cold blast, it gives a +5 to hit and 1d4+5 damage, plus the STR damage. Works well with mudball, also.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Where I think AE has its best appeal is to the already experienced gamer. The first time player is going to be comfortable in D&D with well-known fantasy tropes, but not always ready to take on a more detailed set of rules. The AE setting is less high-magic than Forgotten Realms, in my opinion. As already noted however, the classes get more built-in powers and cool ways to shine. Which I think is a really, really good thing.

I ran a game for two years. Two of my players moved. Now I'm working on a new one. AE is the same as all other RPG games. The first couple sessions are getting used to the character, the abilities and the group. It's once you get past that that the roleplaying sets in. There's nothing inhibiting about AE. If anything, the players I've seen at cons and gamedays who try it out are generally better roleplayers than the ones I see when I DM a vanilla D&D game. My own players were really fun roleplayers and we had a blast with our sessions.

I think a really key point often overlooked is that while AE is an alternate player's handbook that can be used to run a complete, self-contained game with a different default setting than D&D, it's own creator uses it as a supplement for a D&D game. Monte's games include AE PCs and D&D 3.5 PCs. Many of the "silent majority" of gamers I've found (anecdotally at least) use it that way also. It's pretty rare to see it exclusively in use, and generally it's for gaming groups that have been around for 10-20 years and want something cool and different. My next f2f game is going to pull from both 3.5 and AE and my own warped imagination.

So I'd suggest trying to use it as an add-on if you can't get a group to adopt it wholesale. There are classes that exemplify archetypes that players have wanted to try for years. The mageblade. The unfettered. The witch. The Champion. These are all easily imported. Many of these are also relatively easy to learn. Glassjaw's point about getting used to the options is well put, but that applies more to magisters, runethanes and akashics, classes that have unusual options.

Heh. I'll say it again. If anyone ever wants me to DM AE for them, I will. If it's out of state and not in easy 2-3 hour driving range, pay my plane fare and get me a place to stay. I'll come.

 

[GlassJaw]

Heh. I'll say it again. If anyone ever wants me to DM AE for them, I will. If it's out of state and not in easy 2-3 hour driving range, pay my plane fare and get me a place to stay. I'll come.

And you'll be glad you did. Bill's games rawk!

 

[Staffan]

As for the system I am not impressed. I am playing a Mohj Magister. Supposed to be a powerful caster type. What I have seen is the magic system is fairly weak at low levels.

The power of the AE magic system comes from its flexibility. AE spellcasters basically work like sorcerers who can trade out their spells every day - that kind of flexibility has to come with a cost, and in this case the cost is that the spells are less powerful than normal D&D spells.

A 5th level magister has 7/5/3/2 readied spells, likely +1 of each due to Int 16 (so, 8/6/4/3). Each of his spells can be cast as a diminished or heightened spell as well (except the 0-level spells which can't be diminished, and the 3rd-level spells which can't be heightened). So said 5th level magister really has more like 14/15/9/4 spells readied (a total of 42).

Let's then say he has two of the template feats (he has four feats total, five if human, so it's pretty reasonable). He can use none, either, or both of these feats on any of his spells, for a total of four different template options (none, feat1, feat2, or both). That's a total of 168 options for his spellcasting. OK, probably not that many, because most template feats have some sort of limitation on what you can use them on (e.g. the fire template only affects spells that do hp damage, and the air template only affects ranged spells), but let's call it 100 options.

For comparison, a 5th level wizard has 4/3/2/1 spells prepared, plus 0/1/1/1 for Int 16 (total 4/4/3/2). That's a total of 13 options for his spellcasting. The magister has something like 7 times as many options as the wizard at the tactical level, so in order to not dominate totally those options need to be a little weaker than the wizard's.

And at the strategic level, the magister is even more powerful. A 5th level wizard knows, for free, 19/8/4/2 spells (assuming Int 16). He might have gotten some more as treasure or spent money on them, but that's the baseline. The magister knows 24/41/40/41 spells (all simple and complex spells), which is more than the wizard can realistically hope to know.

And that doesn't even go into the way magisters can trade casting-slots up or down - a magister can trade in a 3rd level casting slot for two 2nd-level slots, the wizard can only trade 1:1. And the magister can also trade in three 2nd-level slots for one 3rd-level slot, a trade the wizard can't even try.

Now, it's true that at low levels, all that flexibility hasn't really kicked in yet, so a 1st level magister might be weaker than a 1st level wizard (especially since the magister doesn't have crossbow proficiency). But in the long run, I think the magister is more powerful.

 

[Morpheus]

Suggestions: Fireburst is a good spell if there's a flame nearby. Also, Distraction is almost as good as killing a creature outright for one round per level, especially if its will save is likely to be poor. Mind Stab is also good against non-undead and non-constructs - subdual damage is still damage, and it's a ranged touch attack. Finally, do not forget about seeker (0-level), as it gives a bonus to attacks AND damage. Heightened and combined with, oh, say, cold blast, it gives a +5 to hit and 1d4+5 damage, plus the STR damage. Works well with mudball, also.

Those are good bits of advice. I have a feeling the mojh magister is going to be more effective next time...

 

[Morpheus]

Hey, Morpheus, just curious, but where in Florida are you?

Follow-up question: Any room in your game group?

We are located in Tampa and we always have room for another.

 

[SWBaxter]

IS anyone running/playing this?

I actually like AU (the previous version, I haven't read AE) better than D&D for a lot of my campaign ideas. It's got a better split of classes, IMHO, a more fun magic system, and as a DM I like the restrictions on some types of magic. I don't find it particularly higher magic than D&D, but that's probably more a GM/campaign issue than a rules issue. I find with the all new races and magic system, it's easier for me to build a magical society and culture from the ground up and make it fairly consistent, whereas with D&D a lot of people prefer to have some version of a medieval society with magic bolted on in places. AU feels like it's higher magic as a result, but really it's just more consistent overall.

 

[Dagger75]

. Finally, do not forget about seeker (0-level), as it gives a bonus to attacks AND damage. Heightened and combined with, oh, say, cold blast, it gives a +5 to hit and 1d4+5 damage, plus the STR damage. Works well with mudball, also.

Wow so for using almost every single 1st level spell I have I can hit ONCE and do 1d4+5 damage. Ray of Frost is a better spell then any of the crap a magister gets at first level. Daze is better to. Instead I have to cast a 1st level to get these benefits.

I wish this stupid magister could at least wear light armor then I could melee. Whats sad is that I can cast Transfer wounds to keep the people useful alive. The only reason the party doesn't make me do this more is because I would pass out from all the damage I take and they don't want me to sit as bored as I do for 6 hours we play. Me falling in combat does not effect them one way or the other.

The more I think about it the more this New Magic System pisses me off.