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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carnifex" data-source="post: 2010509" data-attributes="member: 227">I have to start by saying that I really like the idea of Arcane Strife - a book of spells designed for an environment where the effects that magic can have on warfare are fully taken into account. It's something that I often feel isn't addressed enough, when you consider the impact that the various different spells like destructive blasts, scrying and teleportation would have on conventional medieval styles of warfare.Arcane Strife provides a large selection of new spells, incorporating a wide variety of different themes and purposes, along with new feats, templates and prestige classes (of course). They give a nice feel of  background to many of the spells by using the culture and history of the world of Shtar as a background, with the various details and personalities really bringing it to life for the reader rather than it being a dry list of mechanics.Prior to the section detailing new spells, Arcane Strife provides some optional new rules for magic users. The 'Arcane Burn' rule in particular is one I think is particularly appropriate if one were to run a campaign where magic takes a similar line to the thaumaturgy of China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels, where if a spellcaster has his concentration disrupted in the middle of attempting to channel the energy for a spell, nasty things can happen. Rules for True Names and sigils are also provided, but overall these new rules could have done with being expanded and being more detailed. The feats in this section are quite interesting and some take an interesting direction of allowing a spellcaster to use their spell energy for other purposes, similar to how the divine feats in DotF let a cleric use his turning for other purposes.The main bulk of the book is the spells, and boy does it have a lot of spells. There are many good new additions here, and I came across several examples where I thought ‘yes, I was wanting a spell like this in my campaign.” You really feel as you read through them that these spells are the result of a place being subjected to numerous and continual wars. The new range of Power Word spells are also quite nice (Power Word Collapse being one I will definitely use in my games). Overall there’s a lot of ingenuity and nice ideas in this section.The problem is that some of them are not fully fleshed out and detailed in terms of mechanics as they should be. Some look like they’re too high a level, others like they’re too low, or the full impact of them hasn’t been thought out fully. Lay to Rest is particularly guilty of this, though the revisions suggested in the add-on do go some way to dealing with this. Others conjure up permanent objects like weapons or caltrops, or even in one case a permanent, free-willed illusion. Also, there is one spell in this supplement which might cause problems in a 3e Revised game, Alter Weapon Material, due to the changes to the damage resistance system in the forthcoming revision.The Prestige Classes presented at the end of the book are nice and imaginative, especiallly the Master of the Hive. Though they too suffer a few problems with the mechanics, they seem quite nicely done overall. The templates, undead which result from some of the spells in this supplement, are also a rather nice addition.This product does suffer from sometimes vague spell descriptions or poorly thought-out mechanics, and a handful of typos seem are in need of being edited out. Yet on the other hand, Arcane Strife is essentially a book of spells, and it does provide a large number of good new spells that can find uses in many campaigns. It’s an excellent product for getting ideas and will prove a valuable resource if a DM intelligently selects spells from it for use in a campaign. It’s no masterpiece, since you need to put in the time and effort to separate out the good from the bad, but it is a worthy purchase for anyone seeking to expand the repertoire of their arcane spellcasters.</blockquote>

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