Behind the Spells

[Crothian]

It took me a while to read one of these nifty PDFs and I'm really liking them. I have Shield and read and reviewed that (see below). Magic Missile is going to be the next one in the series I'm doing. There is a lot more in these little PDFs then I expected. I'm going to be using them directly in my campaign to expand and increase the power of the party Wizard and perhaps other classes if I get one that applies to them.

Behind the Spell Shield Review

This is a PDF I won from a small contest on EN World. I have not seen anything of the series but I heard good things on them from people. It really is a cool and creative idea. The spells had to be invented by someone and this series answers just who that was for a few of the spells.

Behind the Spell: Shield is a PDF by Bret Boyd. It is produced through Ronin Arts one of the leaders in the PDF market. The PDF is small only being five pages. The lay out is nice and simple and there is no art in the book not that it needs it. The product is book marked and that is good as not many people seem to book mark the five page PDFs.

Behind the Spell Shield instantly connects itself with the Magic Missile PDf in the same series. However, one does not need that to understand the things going on here and that is good since I do not have it. But Bret Boyd takes a logical leap forward that since Shield protects from Magic Missile the creation of the spells would be connected in some way. The book is presented as someone doing research and discovering who in fact invented this spell. It is not just a simple statement of who did it but also the circumstances and events that lead to it. In this case it is the grandson of the Wizard who invented Magic Missile and he eventually created Shield to help remove himself from the famous shadow of his relative. There is intrigue and adventure idea in there though not exactly written as so.

The book not only has a pair of new versions of the Shield spell but also ways to use the Shield spell. There are some rules to allow the Shield spell to not only negate Magic Missiles but to also reflect the magic missiles possible back at the caster. That is really cool. Another option has the Shield leave you and basically perform a Bull Rush against foes. And the final option allows one to negate a different low level spells besides Magic Missile. This is great stuff. I love the versatility and creativeness of this.

The book also has a pair of new versions of Shield. The first is really cool allowing the Shield to act as a window to be used with detection spells. That is very cool. The other one basically combines the Shield with a Lesser Globe of Invulnerability. This spell I did not find as creative but it is obviously useful.

Behind the Spells: Shield is a lot better then I was expecting. Bret Boyd can write and has good creative ideas. As with many short PDFs it leaves the reader wanting more and I would love to see another three hundred spells given this type of detail and respect. Obviously that is not going to happen. Behind the Spell Shield is a great way to take a new look at an old standby spell that people have been using for over twenty years.

 

[Pinotage]

What's your final star rating on this, Crothian?

Pinotage

 

[Napftor]

According to the listing on RPGNow, he gave it 4 out of 5. Thanks again, Crothian!

Edit: I hate to be overly critical, but the title of the series is Behind the Spells. Your title looks so strange to me without the "s"

 

[Crothian]

I hate the star systems....but it is a four star.

This series has sparked an idea for a new campaign. A campaign set in the beginning of whatever world where spellcasters have no spells. They have to come up with the spells. Of course for that to work I'd need better guidelines of what makes a first level spell different from asecond level spell etc.

 

[catsclaw227]

I was interested in these as well, but I have yet to jump on board. I just wondered how much info you can squeeze out of a specific spell regarding history and alternate uses. Do any of these offer amplified and/or reduced effects (similar to the heightened/diminished mechanic in Monte's AE)

BTW -- Crothian, what grading paradigm would you prefer, that would allow a reader to guage your review conclusions at quick glance?

 

[Crothian]

BTW -- Crothian, what grading paradigm would you prefer, that would allow a reader to guage your review conclusions at quick glance?

None. If I wanted the reader to learn my thoughts at a quick glance my review would read:

"Behind the Spells :Shield is a great book, get it!!"

A quick glance doesn't tell the whole story or offer a complete view of the product. If people want a quick glance the message boards are full of posts on many books like that. A review has more substance and tells the reader why. For instance a 4 star review might be because the art was excpetional and the rules though were a little bit of a problem though the book over all was creative. A person looks sees 4 stars buys it, and then complains because the rules are weak. There are many factors that go into a complete review and a quick glance shows none of them.

 

[Napftor]

I was interested in these as well, but I have yet to jump on board. I just wondered how much info you can squeeze out of a specific spell regarding history and alternate uses. Do any of these offer amplified and/or reduced effects (similar to the heightened/diminished mechanic in Monte's AE)...

Not as such, catsclaw. You can squeeze a surprising amount of info into 2,100 to 2,300 words. You do get the history of the creator (at least as far as that history has to do with the spell in question). And the other rules stuff presents tweaks to the current spell that go beyond a simple augmenting or diminishing. I look at a spell's writeup and decide what a spellcaster might be able to change on the fly (each spell secret usually requires a Spellcraft check or other knowledge).

For example, the fireball spell mentions that the pea-sized ball of flame will detonate early if it impacts an object before the caster's stated point of detonation. I give you rules for an early impact in the pdf. It's these kind of spell "loopholes" that I look for. Sometimes the secrets are just a neat idea I get that works well with the spell without really taking away from what it is.

The last section of each pdf is a different matter. Here are commonly presented two new rules bits, be they variant spells, new spells, magic items, etc. (the dancing lights issue comes with its own game!).

To sum up, you really can't go wrong for $1 per pdf. You get possible GM plot hooks, new ways to use the spell, brand new spells/items, and have an enjoyable read! What more can you ask for?

 

[Pinotage]

I've only bought and reviewed two of these (Magic Missile and Polymorph - first and last at the moment), but they contain some useful pieces of information. For Polymorph, at least, I felt like there were at least half a dozen interesting things that I could gleam from the pdf, in terms of mechanics, spells, ideas, etc. While one would naturally prefer to see a lot more (I mean, if you push yourself you can come up with dozens of spell variants), I think Bret (Napftor) has selected good ones that are useful. They're not always meaty in terms of page count, but there are neat little things in them. Or at least the ones I've seen.

Pinotage

 

[Pinotage]

A quick glance doesn't tell the whole story or offer a complete view of the product. If people want a quick glance the message boards are full of posts on many books like that. A review has more substance and tells the reader why. For instance a 4 star review might be because the art was excpetional and the rules though were a little bit of a problem though the book over all was creative. A person looks sees 4 stars buys it, and then complains because the rules are weak. There are many factors that go into a complete review and a quick glance shows none of them.

That's their own fault then, for not reading the review! I admit that it's difficult to write a review in such a way that people are going to want to read it, so to a certain extent leaving the star rating out forces them to read it. Then again, they just read the conclusions at the end in any case!

Pinotage

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Any chance Behind the Spells will come out as a hard copy compilation?