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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scurvy_Platypus" data-source="post: 5384367" data-attributes="member: 43283">Two products that I _really_ like but so far haven't had an opportunity to run a game featuring them:Unusual Core Classes: The Spellweaver<a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?from_home=1&it=1&motds_id=414&products_id=12636" target="_blank">Unusual Core Classes: The Spellweaver - Misfit Studios | RPGNow.com</a>It shifts magic to being a skill-based system. "Weaves" have a DC. Failure has a consequence which usually involves some sort of backlash for the caster (taking damage) and it increases the difficulty of subsequent weaving rolls. It includes the rules for taking a spell from any source and using the weaving rules for it, as well as providing a simple list of the weaving DCs for spells from the SRD. It's _really_ nice that they went the extra bit to do that, as it reduces the overall workload on the GM.You could either use this system as a replacement for the magic system, or you could use it as an "extra" for characters/NPCs. Maybe magic above a certain spell level (say 6th level spells and above) use the Spellweaving rules instead. A few different ways to play with this.My second pick?Secrets of Pact Magic.Here's what it's about:<a href="http://www.pactmagic.com/home.htm" target="_blank">Secrets of Pact Magic</a>You can find the ordering information from their site:<a href="http://www.pactmagic.com/order.htm" target="_blank">Secrets of Pact Magic</a>There's a bunch of downloadable stuff, including a conversion guide to use it with Pathfinder:<a href="http://www.pactmagic.com/download.htm" target="_blank">Secrets of Pact Magic</a>And here's a review (there's other reviews out there):<a href="http://www.creativeanomalies.com/blog/2009/11/27/review-secrets-of-pact-magic/" target="_blank">Review: Secrets of Pact Magic | Creatively Anomalous</a>So, what are we talking here? Spirit binding for fun and profit. Summoning and binding a spirit grants the person a variety of powers. So for example, you can bind Cave Mother (page 72) which has a Bind DC of 15 and be granted the following abilites: Burning Hands (as per the spell, wait 5 rounds between each use), Detect Magic, Disrupt Undead (1d6 positive energy damage), Know Direction (always know where True North is, lasts for 24 hours), Obscuring Smoke (works as Obscuring Mist spell).Additionally, Binding various spirits tends to have a manifestation (physical, personality), and sometimes other bonuses as well.Basically the author came across the WotC Binder and thought it was darn cool; he then went out and did his own take on the whole thing.The book covers binding versions of these classes: Monk, Cleric, Fighter, Ranger, Wizard. It's got a couple of classes as well that don't have a core analogue: the Unbound Witch, who winds up letting the spirits have free reign and gets permanent monstrous characteristics, and the Warbinder who's sort of a Paladin but instead of being a holy warrior type is a leader/fighter/strategist type. The Warbinder has mostly elements of bards in that they're able to share things and buff allies, but wrapped in a paladin style.The book includes a huge amount of stuff, including prestige classes and some variant class features (Bard, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, and Any With Spirit Binding).What to do with Secrets of Pact Magic? Man, what do you _want_ to do?If you've got a real hatred for the standard d20 magic system, combine both of these. Now you're cooking with gasoline. Basically, anything that requires spellcasting (like say the Soul Weaver), simply swap out the spellcasting aspect using the Spellweaver; otherwise, go with the Pact Magic for what you want.This gives you a setting where casters are weaving the threads of life and magic to create various effects (spells), as well as using them to bind spirits which provide a different sort of power. With the base classes covered by SoPM, you can really jazz things up. If you essentially replace the base classes with the ones from SoPM, you've got magic deeply rooted into your setting; if you don't have people Weaving, you've got them Binding spirits.You can take it a different direction, by running with the normal core classes and then having the SoPM classes be supplemental ones, with the casters either being SoPM casters, Spellweavers, or both.Or you can go a slightly different direction... Spellweaving is the way magic is done, and SoPM stuff is specific to either a race or a nation. Perhaps elves have access to the Soul Weaver class, dwarves have access to the Pact Warrior class, and half-orcs have access to the Unbound Witch class. Treating the SoPM classes as exclusive racial abilities again will give your world a very distinct feeling, while giving you and your players some groovy things to play with.Villains of Pact Magic introduces more stuff, including the Exorcist class, which is all about expelling spirits.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> It's a solid supplement I think, but you don't _have_ to have it.</blockquote>

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