Arcana Evolved

[Khorod]

The hardest character to build in any fantasy system is the Mighty Spellcaster. Kudos to you for giving it a shot.

At low level, the +1 to DC's is nice, but not as good as a lot of other spellcaster choices.

Your spell selection does look a little wacky. At low level it is particularly important for you to stand behind somewhat large and meaty. Remember, you can do more than change it once a day. You can change it with a full hour of preparation any time you are rested.

And at low level, *any* kind of multiclassing is bad for a spellcaster. While a Full BAB class would at least have given you a combat edge, the Mohj levels are giving you a more diluted boost to your power. And the first three levels are the ones most important for efficient character building.

The overall spell power of AU/AE spells starts higher than 3x and ends lower with the 9th level spells. (10th level spells shoot around the same, or a little higher)

However, while D&D spells are designed for wizard and sorcerer machine gunning, many of the AE spells require more tactical consideration for when and how to use the spells. This encourages you to ready a broad variety of spells and be sparing with their use. That might not help you much at third level, but third level spellcasters always suck- its part of the price for later glory.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

I loves me magister!

Hello,

I have a sixth level human magister and I love him. In the first adventure I used canny effort more times than any spell I had. I'll admit it was the DM putting forth a terrific adventure but even in combat I rocked. I carried torches, that took me a full round action to light, with me and my gems for fireburst with the fire template (fire mage was my bonus 5th feat). The champion and unfettered kept the bad guys busy until I could toss the torch and fireburst. Rolled near max damage too and crisped one bad guy.

Earthburst is a sweet 2nd level spell as well.

Ahhh! the good times.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

No don't own the book, just what I get a hold of at the game.

As for Stat boosts, you sure you are looking at the right book. From what I saw there was no stat boosts till you had like 4 or so levels of a race. I got Detect magic Will for 1st level Mohj and a +1 to natural armor

At 2nd level I got Levitate,Touch of Fear and lesser Beastskin plus a spellcasting level. Thats it. I didn't see any stat boosts.

My bad on the stat boosts. Sorry. That's the old version of mojh.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Detect Magic at will isn´t bad, I would think - you no longer have to ready nor cast it with your regular slots, giving you the possiblity to weave a 1st level spell from a few of the 0 slots, if you have the impression that the 0 level spells aren´t worth the effort.
Lesser Beastskin might last just a few minutes, but it should still be enough to hold for two or three combats in a dungeon enviroment, giving either you or another character a significant boost to his AC. (Depending on wether you adopt the Barkskin rules of D&D 3.5, it might not stack with your natural Mojh´s armor.)

IIRC, Levitate is the first oppertunity to get some kind of flying ability, which can always provide useful.

 

[Odhanan]

Where I think AE has its best appeal is to the already experienced gamer.

This is only true in theory and to some extent in practice, varianor.

I must precise I run an AU/E + [D&D/Ghostwalk] game with all five players being newbies to RPGs. We've now been playing for one year, and after being single classed for a long while, the players now chose some prestige classes. They know the Skills and their own class abilities. They may still be lost with the abundance of feats. What is in fact confusing is the amount of material. But this is just as much the case with D&D. In both cases, this involves a long learning curve, certainly, but newbies can do it. You should be a dedicated DM willing to help the players with questions though, that much is clear.

For me AU/E is a blast. Nothing to say particularly. I'm just a huge fan, I love all the options, the opportunities to design new stuff as a DM or player, to customize everything, to make of each character a truly original piece mechanically speaking.

It opens so much the possibilities a D&D game can offer. It is uber-coolness incarnated as gaming material.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Well, I'm not that impressed by AU/AE.
Maybe it's because I already was using racial levels and something like diminished/heightened effects in my own campaign, I don't know.

I think the races are a bit unimagitive, I'm afraid. Why not just stick with some of the more traditionel races? And the classes as well. They just had to have new names? Warmain? What the hell kind of a name is that? :\
Reminds me of Gygax's Lejendary Adventures where your character was called an avatar. Why? Changing names and terms every roleplayer is familiar with is not new thinking and innovation in my opinion.

And some of the classes are overpowered which to some makes them kewl, IMO. The warmain is better off than a fighter with better HD, better will save and just as many feats IIRC. Sure, his limited in his choices, but if you're going for the tank fighter, no big deal. How many fighters do you know that do not take weapon specialization at 4th lvl?

And the 'evolved version' is just a power creep. Does that make this version better? The Unfettered gets more abilities. The warmain gets combat rites...
More power, more kewlness!

Sorry if this has become a rant. Not my intention. I really, really like AU/AE for the flexibility, something I think D&D lacks. And I love the spell system, absolutely love it.

It's just that I think that some of the great things people say about AE comes on a cheap background. If I gave the fighter a feat every lvl, he too would be very diverse and kewl, but the result is power creep.

A system like True20/Blue Rose makes for great diversity IMO, without power creep. Quite the opposite.

Just my opinion, of course

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I don't have Arcana Evolved, but the AU warmain seems to be an answer to the "fighters are underpowered" criticism of core D&D - a correct answer, and a very good one. Show me the warmain who can go toe to toe with a druid at 12th level, because I'm certainly not seeing it.

As for the races, AU/AE's appear to be geared toward those who are sick of the standard fantasy tropes, but that's just a matter of taste. My preference is to cherry-pick the best of both worlds - humans, dwarves, giants and littorians being my personal faves from D&D and AU.

 

[satori01]

Dagger I can feel your pain regarding a low level Magister, especially taking racial levels that do not increase your caster level. At low levels a Magister is really more of a utillity caster, and not a combat brute or healer. Given Sent Tracker, Open lock, Precise Vison, and Acrobatics you can out perform a Ranger or Rogue type character.

Do not try to play a Magister with the intent of out damaging the melee classes, you will not win and discourage yourself. Try to think more in terms of what you can do to help out on any given turn, and use the sheer number of spells at your disposal to ready some surprises for you DM.

Trust me when you get Sorcerous Blast all your power troubles will go away on your first Heightend Sorcerous blast, or Your first Greater Battle Healing, or your first spell weaving of a 3 level spell slot into two second level slots and casting a Modified Laddened diminished Fire Templeted Sorcerous Blast doing 9d6 damage at 5th level. Magisters at around 8th level can be the best Healer/ Nuker in a party.

The Eldritch Template is more useful down the road then at low levels, I also reccomend picking up Blood as Power(for more spells), and Modify Spells as must haves. Also keep in mind you can retool your feats at 10th and 20th level, so you can eleminate choices, like say Energy Mage Fire, when that extra 1-2d6 damage seems less useful then say the Battle Mage or Blessed Feat.

 

[Dagger75]

Dagger I can feel your pain regarding a low level Magister, especially taking racial levels that do not increase your caster level. At low levels a Magister is really more of a utillity caster, and not a combat brute or healer. Given Sent Tracker, Open lock, Precise Vison, and Acrobatics you can out perform a Ranger or Rogue type character.

Do not try to play a Magister with the intent of out damaging the melee classes, you will not win and discourage yourself. Try to think more in terms of what you can do to help out on any given turn, and use the sheer number of spells at your disposal to ready some surprises for you DM.

Trust me when you get Sorcerous Blast all your power troubles will go away on your first Heightend Sorcerous blast, or Your first Greater Battle Healing, or your first spell weaving of a 3 level spell slot into two second level slots and casting a Modified Laddened diminished Fire Templeted Sorcerous Blast doing 9d6 damage at 5th level. Magisters at around 8th level can be the best Healer/ Nuker in a party.

The Eldritch Template is more useful down the road then at low levels, I also reccomend picking up Blood as Power(for more spells), and Modify Spells as must haves. Also keep in mind you can retool your feats at 10th and 20th level, so you can eleminate choices, like say Energy Mage Fire, when that extra 1-2d6 damage seems less useful then say the Battle Mage or Blessed Feat.

Thanks for the advice. I was looking for something like this. Its hard to know the spells when they are all different and I don't own the book. I don't like bogging down the combat with looking at spells and what not. Hopefuly I will feel more useful during the next game.

 

[Acid_crash]

I think the races are a bit unimagitive, I'm afraid. Why not just stick with some of the more traditionel races? And the classes as well. They just had to have new names? Warmain? What the hell kind of a name is that? :\
Reminds me of Gygax's Lejendary Adventures where your character was called an avatar. Why? Changing names and terms every roleplayer is familiar with is not new thinking and innovation in my opinion.

And some of the classes are overpowered which to some makes them kewl, IMO. The warmain is better off than a fighter with better HD, better will save and just as many feats IIRC. Sure, his limited in his choices, but if you're going for the tank fighter, no big deal. How many fighters do you know that do not take weapon specialization at 4th lvl?

And the 'evolved version' is just a power creep. Does that make this version better? The Unfettered gets more abilities. The warmain gets combat rites...
More power, more kewlness!

What confuses me is that people suggest using the standard races and classes because using different races and classes isn't innovated but using standard races and classes (even just the names) is innovated?

What's up with this, seems like a contradiction. Why should he call the Warmain a Fighter? Or the Unfettered a Rogue? Why does it have to be the same, all the time, every time? How is the Evolved version power creep when the game is designed to be self-contained in its own world, in it's own game, and the classes and races are matched with each other and not designed to really match up with D&D classes and races? Don't use them together then.

Power creep, to me, is a wizard being pretty useless compared to a well stocked fighter until fifth level, then gaining fireball, and suddenly able to toast his opponents. Power creep, to me, is gaining a spell that automatically hit, each time, every time, with no save to avoid, and no possible way to avoid the damage (at least, early on).

It's a lot more imaginative to see a different player's handbook that don't cater to elves and dwarves and orcs, and instead uses different races and different classes and modifies a spell system that sucks into one that rocks.