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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2008953" data-attributes="member: 18387">I (like many, I imagine) was WAY excited about this book and its prospects.  I mean, come on!  This was supposed to be "Wild Magic" for 3E, right.  Well it isn't.  If that is what you want then go to Natural 20's web site.  They have a far superior product there.  So I was destined for dissapointment, to be sure.  However, I really wanted to give the book a chance.  I don't like to think I wated my hard earned cash.  If I can delude myself into thinking a book was at least "Worth it" then everybody comes away happy, right?Well, there is no happy ending here.  "Chaos Magic" is the third in Mongoose Press' magic series.  All three books have attempted in some way to rewrite the standard way of casting spells in D&D.  This book is the most extensive rewrite yet.  Mainly these books take the premise that its OK to crank up the power level so long as you hand out stiff penalties along the way.  Along these lines chaos magic, as outlined in the book, is a set of VERY flexible guidelines.  You can basically wriggle your way into casting any kind of spell you want (except maybe divination - but then who cares when you can summon anyone you wish to talk to.)  I am reminded of some of the sample "Characters-you-should-not-allow" listed in the Champions book.  You remember - the "blind-deaf-no arms-no legs-hyperphobic-multi enemied-confined to his room-being" with god like powers.  What fun is that!  Even if you do enjoy those kinds of characters, trust me - you are, at the very least, giving your DM fits!Take the proposed magic creation system.  It is overly complicated - e.g. you have to make hardness checks against the material used to forge the item, but that hardness deteriorates, unless you "repair" the item, but if you do repair the item, it deteriorate faster every time you repair it, and ......  oh heck - you get the idea.So, IMHO the basic premise of the book was lacking.  You may be wondering if there was something salvageable in the book.  Yes.  "Chaos Magic" has some pretty nice ideas within its pages.  The best example of this is the "Doomringer" prestige class; a very cool fusion of necromancy and chaos magic.  Horribly broken, but cool nonetheless.  And I also enjoyed the "Wanton Talents" section where static mages can tap into chaos magic.  Again, pretty unworkable, but they would make cool feats with minor rewriting.And so it goes - every time I think I found something I could use, it turned out to be unworkable.  The concepts were good - the execution was lacking.  But, this is what saved the book from a '1' in my mind.  It got me thinking at least.  It never hurts to read something that sparks the imagination.  However, as a DM I spend enough time working on new adventures, etc.  I do not want to have to tweak a broken system - especially when that system if a massive rework of something that already worked.One more thing - so many of Mongoose press' books looks like term papers I wrote in high school.  The font is huge, the margins are very wide.  There is plenty of blocked off quotes taking up gobs of room.  At least the illustrations are very nice.  They also take up lots of room.  My first reading of the entire book took about an hour hours, and I was takin' notes fer crying out loud.I may open this book up to glean some info someday down the road.  But I am pretty sure that I will never play or run for a chaos mage.  Even if this were the best magic concept ever, I think it should be with the other two Encylopedia arcane books, for all the content you get for $$.  I gotta say, Mongoose may be cranking out too much too quickly.  Maybe I'm cynical, but isn't a Mongoose just another word for a weasel?</blockquote>

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