The sixth release in the
Behind the Spells line by
Ronin Arts,
Blade Barrier is a five-page PDF in black & white with no art. As I've come to expect from Ronin Arts products, the layout and design of the product is excellent, and I only found one minor typo ("villagesbordering" on page 2). Like the other PDFs in the series, this short work aims to explore the background of and variants on a particular spell,
blade barrier in this case, which is both the highest level spell detailed by Bret Boyd to date and the first divine spell, also.
Overall, I was pleased with the PDF and found the mechanical material to be very nice. Before I talk about that in further detail, though, I should mention my one major complaint — the product is short, even for something in this line. The fourth page is half empty, and the OGL takes up the fifth page. It's just a lot of empty space for something this short, and it struck me as rather jarring. And, although the narrative material is extensive (and I did cull at least one immediate plot hook, concerning the whereabouts/nature of the spell's creator, which could be very cool to use in a game), the mechanical stuff was rather brief, which caused me to wonder if Boyd found this spell less inspiring than previous material.
Despite this, the mechanical material that Boyd presents, however, is neat, mainly focusing on two alternate uses of the spell. Basically, it allows a caster to make a Spellcraft check to see if he can manipulate the cast spell, firing off individual blades from the barrier or causing it to explode at his enemies. My one concern would be that it would be hard for a cleric, with its limited skill ranks, to actually make good use of these options as the DCs could be fairly high if the cleric has little or no ranks in Spellcraft. Of course, this is likely a feature and not a bug, rewarding a cleric that has chosen to study magical energies at the expense of theology or diplomacy. In any case, the base idea (that casters can manipulate cast spells by making Spellcraft checks) is elegant and intuitive and provides casters in the Vancian system with a certain degree of flexibility.
The only other component of this PDF, the alternate spell, which was basically a higher level version of
blade barrier combined with
daylight and
searing light, was not terrifically exciting to me. It's well designed, certainly, but not to my taste necessarily — simply too much going on there.
Behind the Spells: Blade Barrier is a nice addition to the line, and it was good to see divine casters getting a little attention in the series, even if, as the PDF suggests, thinking of divine spells as being created by mortals might be a little counterintuitive.
Score: 4 (a bit short with some very nice moments)
