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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crothian" data-source="post: 2954874" data-attributes="member: 232">Fireball for me was always the quintessential magic user spell.  Of course we call them Wizards now but an arcane caster was not truly an arcane caster until they had Fireball.  And it was used all the freaking time.  Fireball was always the spell that meant power to us and now it is nice to see it with a bit of context and depth.      Behind the Spells: Fireball is one of the many PDFs in the Behind the Spells series of PDF.  These are all written by Bret Boyd and put out by Ronin Arts.  The PDF like all of them in the series is small only being five pages long.  The PDF has no art in it not that it needs any, it has a simple yet practical layout, and the PDF despite its small size is nicely book marked.      The Fireball history is linked to the Magic Missile one but one does not need that one to make sense of this one.  I like seeing similar characters and linkage between the PDF.  I think it ultimately makes the line of PDFs much stronger.  Like the others in the series it starts with a good but of history about the creator and how the spell came into being.  This one again makes use of the mysterious Arcane Triad.  I know the series is only going to consist of so many PDFs and when it is over I am really hoping that Bret Boyd gives us a nice PDF on this organization.      The PDF then goes into the spell secrets and additional rules and variant spells.  This section deals with things not well covered in the core rules and expands on them in the usual creative ways.  The first is dealing with the sound a fireball spell makes and being able to alter the casting to make more of is sonic damage combined with fire damage.  It then goes into purposely causing a fireball spell to explode prematurely if it is cast at you.  There is a nice sidebar that goes into it all with some pretty good rules.  Lastly are two variant spells.  The first is a higher level variant that can also damage creatures on the Ethereal Plane.  The second causes two smaller fireballs to explode in two different areas.  They are nice and simple to use variants.      Behind the Spells: Fireballs is another solid addition to the line of PDFs.  Bret Boyd is a good creative writer that makes the histories and stories of the spells use easy to read.  At the same time he has a good grasp on the d20 rules to create well balanced variants and additional rules to make the spell uses a bit more helpful.  The PDF makes using the Fireball spell a bit more fun and practical.  I really enjoy the added depth to the spell and making it more part of a world then just have it be a spell with no context and background.  I will hopefully be slowly going through the rest of the series and making sure they are all equally as strong.</blockquote>

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