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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2008683" data-attributes="member: 18387">This ambitious book wades into the field where so many have failed before - making a point based magic system for DnD.Magic systems are the aspect of the rules that interest me the most and I liked previous Mongoose products so I gave Chaos Magic rather a careful read. My conclusion is that despite some excellent ideas it ultimately fails to provide a fun and balanced novel way to do magic in d20.  Previous E.A. books dealt with magical practices well established in non-gaming fantasy and mythology. Their big attraction was in giving the game-mechanic reasons for the well established stereotypes. Beyond the world of War Hammer and the margins of Michael Moorcook, chaos mages are not nearly as well established concept. This means that in determining costs and benefits of chaos magic atmosphere, in this book, follows the game mechanics instead of the other way around. Together with the significant drop in quality and quantity of "grey box" fiction that has so far been the hallmark of Mongoose books this means that the book is significantly less rich in feel and inspiration then its predecessors. With atmosphere diminished from Demonology and Necromancy the weight of the book falls on the game mechanics of chaos magic. Does it really succeed in delivering the holy grail of d20 system: non-rigid magical system?Answer is a guarded "Kind of". Many balance issues loom large and some obvious problems have been overlooked but the basic premise seems relatively sound and a dedicated DM can probably make something out of it.     Premise is simple enough - forces of chaos are ever-present and talented individuals can harness them to produce a variety of magical effects. Price they pay is the exhaustion and damage to their bodies and possible malevolent mutations that get worse as one progresses down the path of chaos magic. Benefit is variability of effects and possibility that, with risk, less skilful mages could in a pinch produce spells beyond their usual capabilities. Key element is a casting check, d20 level check modified by the relevant ability - charisma and potential feat bonuses that needs to be over the DC for a given spell. If the check succeeds, spell goes of and caster suffers DC/5 worth of subdual damage. If it fails so does the spell and the damage is real. Balance issues are immediately apparent. More then for any class, prime ability becomes of utmost importance to chaos mage, difference amounting to essentially a level difference between two chaos mages with slightly different charisma. One good thing about d20 is that skills and feats and liberal helping of class abilities meant that bad character stats are not insurmountable handicap. Not so here. It also means that chaos mages have pre-assigned highest stats: Cha and Con (for hit points) - annulling another great achievement of d20, that of making various stat assignments valid options within a single class. Furthermore this means that those feats that help with casting check become must-takes for chaos mages. I have long maintained that if anything becomes a must-take it is either unbalanced or should not be called a feat. Using damage as a balancing element for spell casting has been tried before. As elegant as it may seem is not without its pitfalls. Beyond the obvious emphasis it puts on already extremely useful stat: Con, it opens the entire issue of healing. The Player's Handbook states that any amount of magical healing will whip out equivalent amount of the subdual damage the character has suffered making healing chaos mages significantly easier. For a regular adventuring party healing damage, even within combat, is not a great problem. Even a first level cleric can cure the average of 20 or so points per day which translates into 100 or so DC to be distributed around for the chaos mage. Obviously this would shot the cleric down as anything but the healing machine for the mage but it is quite clear that in many circumstances this could prove to be optimal party strategy - annulling another great achievement of d20, reduction of supporting role each class is forced to play. Clearly cleric player might chose not to help but at the price of being seen as the selfish for not following the optimal strategy. Furthermore, this puts the chaos mage adventuring without the cleric at the gross disadvantage furthermore limiting the flexibility of the class. Abundance of potions of healing and cleric's ability to craft those in large quantities at relatively low price only exuberate this problem further at higher levels.Furthermore, even with decent clerical support chaos mage is a veritable damage dealing machine: At first level, assuming 17 cha and 14 con our mage would have 6HP and casting check bonus of +6 (Assuming Casting Focus and Blood of Chaos feats). "Medium range - persistent damage" spell will cause equivalent of magic missile (best offensive first level spell) in damage with 85% chance of success and 5 of those available *per encounter*. Single cure spell delivered in the combat will double this number.  By fifth level (when wizard relishes his newly found two fireballs per day) our chaos mage will have cha 18 translating into check bonus of +11 and around 25HP. "Close Burst of Raw Damage" will go off with 80% chance inflicting on average 5HP more then fireball, using more advantageous saving throw, having greater area and functionally similar range. In addition TWELVE will be available PER ENCOUNTER, not counting potions of healing. At this point it is almost pointless to bother with damage limitations any more.Obviously damage does a poor job of balancing the class. So here comes a truly novel idea of this book: Paths of Chaos. Those are the series of dehumanising effects that plague chaos wizards who overuse their craft. This is a great idea of this book and something that puts it apart from the vast number of entirely unsuccessful "mana" systems for DnD. The premise is again elegant: On rolling of 1 on her casting check and then bellow her current point on the path on a d20, caster undergoes a horrific transformation, each worse then the last, causing her pain and deforming her body and psyche. Ten transformations and she is gone. On the surface this is similar mechanism to the necromantic feats from the previous E.A. in effect it is vastly different.Firstly, necromancer can live and function without the feats. They can be used as rarely as one chooses to. Spells and other class abilities guarantee that character is still viable without them. Not so with the chaos mage - spells are her tools of trade, without using them she might as well not take the class. Yet the danger constantly looms. This means that at any given time chaos mage will be mutated to some degree. Postponing the discussion of the mutations themselves, where does this leave us with respect to the number of spells character can cast and therefore game balance:First mutation will likely occur within the first 20 spells. Second within the next 20^2=400 spells, third within the next 20*19=380 spell and so on - total number of spells within which one can expect the death of the character being 2880.  At 12th level character acquires the mechanism for reversing the stream so this 2880 have to be distributed over 11 levels of play to about 263 per level or roughly half of that number to assure decent chance of survival and avoid most deleterious disfigurations. Even under the very fast progression through levels suggested by the core books this amounts to significantly less spells per encounter (7-10) then the damage limitations would allow, (showing those to be definitively irrelevant from the game mechanic point of view). This is roughly balanced with the wizard if a bit on the overpowered side considering that they can all be the most powerful spell the character can cast. This calculation reveals the true limitation on the chaos mages. Damage considerations become trivial in comparison and the only thing chaos mage needs to worry about are backlashes. This has one definitively positive effect - that of eliminating frivolous casting. With “lifetime” number of spells limited (even if only statistically) spells will only be cast when absolutely necessary. This is salutary as it removes some of "taken for granted" feel that magic have in regular DnD but in this case it has some serious side-effects. Foremost of those is that, given that backlash is equally likely for all sorts of spells, and that backlash is TRUE limiting factor, only most powerful spells with the decent pull-off chances will ever be cast. This on the other hand reduces the versatility of the Chaos Mage in comparison with the mage seriously damaging the very reson d’etre of the class.  At 12th level however all of this changes dramatically. New class ability is introduced which enables the character to push back the impeding doom. For (mutation level)*500XP (250XP if another must have feat has been taken) it can be pushed one point back. Assuming our chaos mage has made it to the 9th mutation by now, it will cost her bit over two months and a hefty sum of 11000XP to get back to the 2nd. 11000XP is a large amount. At this stage it amounts to practically an entire level of advancement. The benefits of spending it, however, are unmatched in value per investment in all of d20 system. Once this expenditure has been taken and 12th level character is back to the second point on the mutation path further backlashes become rare (once in 400 castings) and easily reparable (500 XP). This reduces the chief balancing factor of the class to expenditure of roughly 1.2 points of XP per spell cast, a veritable joke at the level when encounters net the character several hundred XP apiece. From this point on, any semblance of the balance is out of window. 12th level chaos mage (+18/+21 casting check, 65 HP with properly groomed constitution) casts without healing 20-30 powerful spells per encounter with almost guaranteed success and virtually unlimited number of auxiliary spells in non-combat situations. In comparison, 13th level wizard (level gained while Chaos Mage was paying out her mutations), a very powerful character in his own right, pales into insignificance. The designer notes in the end claim that the original version of the rules denied the possibility of buying back the steps on the Path of Chaos. Obviously, the implications of changing this rule in the manner presented were not given nearly enough consideration.         It is possible to house rule many of this rules to get the somewhat better system. Backlash chance can somehow be related to the level of a spell being cast in order to avoid “always cast the most powerful ones” problem. Damage dealt can be increased and/or made un-healable magically to make it more of a balancing factor, the mechanism for curing mutations can be rewritten. All of those however demand a lot of work and detract seriously from the elegance of the system. Question is then: is it worth it?Finally we get to the issue of what is gained by introducing the chaos magic, either as a substitute for regular magic or as an addition to it. Three answers suggest themselves: 1) A more flexible system of magic where just about any kind of effect is possible for audacious and lucky caster 2) System with less of a mechanic feel then the standard DnD where spells are cast carefully and with apprehension and are not taken for granted. And 3) A distinctly new flavour filling an important niche in fantasy gaming. While I believe that 3) was true for Necromancy and Demonology I simply do not see it as a case for Chaos Magic. This is just a personal opinion but I have always found War Hammer chaos (At which this book seems to be loosely modelled) the weakest feature of otherwise well detailed campaign world. In Moorcock it was always described very vaguely and, at any rate, stuff of this book reminds of Moorcock’s chaos sorcery only superficially. Beyond those two this fantasy fan has a trouble remembering any other practice or lore from either non-gaming fantasy or mythology that even loosely falls under the purview of this book. 2) is for me the most important reason of all – reason why I loved previous E.A. books so much and a reason why I would try to make Chaos Magic work if I ever do so. Transferring spell limitation from per day to per lifetime or per level (which is effectively what backlash mechanic does) is an interesting concept and one that needs to be explored more. It definitively has a potential to solve this standing problem in d20 magical system.Reason 1) is one most mentioned in the book itself. I have already argued to some extent that it is not justified with the system as it currently stands. Making it unreasonable to cast any but the most powerful spells automatically limits the chaos mage. Limiting the number of spells channels her further towards the exactly those applications of magic that are all but impossible for other party members to achieve. Sadly, in most cases this means the area effect damage dealing spells combined with one or two spells for personal protection. Fireball ubiquity is already a serious problem for d20 magic system, in the system in which character is allowed and even implicitly encouraged (by making only most powerful magic pay) to casts nothing but fireball-equivalents, diversity and flexibility will be the first to suffer. The authors of the book obviously were aware, at least subconsciously, that this is what is going to happen when they have dedicated most of the magical effects section to the damage distributions and area-effect spreads. Pure expedience of play is almost guaranteed to cause “static” mage with semi-random selection of spells to be more “flexible” then his chaotic counterpart with her two or three “best value per risk” incantations.            Finally, a word or two need to be said about the mutations themselves as they are guaranteed to influence the atmosphere of the game at least throughout fist 11 levels before mage gets her ability to keep them under the control. Reader of my reviews will remember how much I liked the Necromantic consequences and the risks associated with the demon summoning. Superficially these are very similar but fundamentally they differ significantly. Beyond the already stated fact that necromantic and demonological consequences simulate time honoured fantasy concepts and the paths of chaos simulate something out of the GW game-book, they differ in the way they affect the play as well. Necromantic consequences generally either have serious mechanical consequences (Holly Aversion) or very interesting role-playing aspects (Eater of the Dead). Chaos ones to the contrary are largely centred on being gratuitously gross. Very few have meaningful game mechanic consequences and most seem to tend to inhibit rather then inspire role-playing. Either the campaign will dwell incessantly on the horrible pain and anguish of a character oozing crystals from her body or developing ulcerous fungi all over her skin, in which case it will become boring exercise in angst, or it won’t in which case it will turn into parody when everybody ceases to care. Eater of the Dead looking for his daily ration can be anything from a minor annoyance to an adventure hook, Seeping Boils is just an invitation to angst. Those mutations that do include substantial role-playing element – namely ones from the Path of Bloody Rage do so in the manner most detrimental to the campaign at large. I once had a player who, of his own free will, played almost exactly what I would except of character midway down this path in the hands of honest role-player. Frankly, it was not a pleasant experience. Humane interaction within and without party makes the backbone of enjoyable RPG and game mechanic that turns character into a mean anti-social manic-depresive simply makes game less enjoyable to everyone.At the long last I come to the production values of the book. They are in line with Mongoose average so far. Cover is beautiful and interior illustrations are of uniform quality, much improved from previous E.A books. They are wading ever deeper into the babe-art territory but they are still on the right side of (my subjective) line of good taste. As a matter of fact some of the sexiest (without being profane) d20 illustrations are to be found in this book. Gray text fiction, previously one of the high points of Moongoose books is apparently increasingly being subcontracted to relative novices and it shows. However it was much reduced in quantity in this book which will undoubtedly please many “crunchy bits lovers” as much as it saddens me. As a new thing back inner cover s no longer featuring art – it has got Mongoose advertisement on it, sad but understandable.Overall I feel this book to be the weakest Mongoose product s far. It gives the shaky game mechanics without the depth of atmosphere to cover it up. I was tempted to give it 2/5 but on understanding that I might be judging it to harshly in the light of its peerless predecessors and in the light of the fact that I will probably end up using at least some ideas from it I give it a fragile 3.</blockquote>

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