Complete Arcane (10 reasons)

[Jolly Giant]

I found the 10 reasons very promising! A nice blend of old favorites reivsed and truelly groundbreaking new material. (I'm of course refering to the feats here!) The new feats intrigue me. They sound extremely powerful, so I'm curious to see their exact wording and their prereqs. The idea that some of them are epic feats seem very plausible, based on what little info WotC has given us so far.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Well my players have used much more from the two complete books released so far than they ever did from the older splats.

When one of my players last rolled up a new character Masters of the Wild had just been released, so the Complete books havn't been used much. It's been a long campaign...

 

[Mr. Kaze]

I'm going to echo Merric here and ask if you have a problem with spells designed to specifically counter other spells/feats.

I.e. Stone to Flesh and Flesh to Stone

I'm a big fan of spontaneous casting -- like sorcerors, mystics, psions -- so I have a problem with "rare-use" spells which either counter only one effect/situation (Flesh to Stone) or only need to be cast once per day (Hero's Feast). There are too many other good spells that can be cast a lot for best effect in a variety of situations for people with limited spell availability to go burning slots on limited use spells. So the existence of spells that are either "You'll only need this once, but..." or "You will only ever use this spell once per day no matter how many daily slots you've got because it's just that powerful" are another factor inherent in the magic system that tips the balance away from the Sorcerors and Mystics in favor of the traditional Wizard and Cleric. (Thus, in a way, psions are the best spontaneous casters because they're not playing on the same field as conventional magic users.)

Traditional prepared magic is fine with traditional low-use spells -- DM does wacky things, PCs to wacky things, great. The newer 3e spontaneous casting? Not so much.

So with my bias on the table, I gotta say that I think the low-use spells are a liability to the current game as they maintain an implicit bias for the prepare-slots casters.

::Kaze (notes that he's called out a specific problem, but not a solution, so he'll offer that he thinks Hero's Feast should be replaced with a Mass Aid, which would align very precisely to Bull's Strength and Mass Bull's Strength and the like as a 6th level version of a 2nd level spell.)

 

[Mr. Kaze]

Now onto the natural armour thing... it would be nice to have a feat that allows to break through a certain point of natural armour, like up to +5 or something.

There are feats and a Ranger spell for beating natural armor in the Draconomicon.

HiH,
::Kaze

 

[VirgilCaine]

The thought bottle, which stores thoughts, memories, experience, and spells, can be a great basis for an adventure.

Okay, thats cool.

. Monsters of Magic:Complete Arcane offers a variety of monsters of particular use to arcane spellcasters. The effigy creature is a magically animated automaton built to resemble another creature. Elemental creatures include the elemental monolith (a powerful elemental prince), and a remake of the elemental grue. Updated versions of the pseudonatural and spellstitched creatures are also included.

Was this in a 3.0 book? I never knew that WotC paid homage to Zork!

9. NPC Prestige Classes: Complete Arcane introduces a host of arcane prestige classes that make great NPCs. The argent savant is a master of force magic, the effigy master can create armies of constructs to serve him, the initiate of the sevenfold veil takes the power of prismatic spells to a whole new level, and the mindbender can effectively create permanent thralls through her charm and dominate spells.

I like the distinction made between NPC prestige classes and ones for PCs...
...I'm not too big on them myself, as too many of them n a campaign don't seem very prestigious (kind of like elf subraces).

 

[Mercule]

Looks like a mixed bag, but generally positive. I'm very much interested in the Duels. That's something that needs some good, solid rules. The other thing I'm looking forward to is the Warlock (not mentioned in the article).

The biggest disappointment, for me, is that they are including Sudden Metamagic feats. Blech! I was hoping those things would find their way to the trash heap. The only truly annoying thing about D&D is it's reliance on "x/day" mechanics to balance things. I'd like to see it move away from that, rather than reinforcing it. If the SM feats had a skill/level/etc. check, that'd be fine, but "x/day" means they'll never see the light of day in my game.

 

[Mercule]

I like the distinction made between NPC prestige classes and ones for PCs...

I loathe the concept. One of the best changes to 3E was the discarding of the trope from earlier editions that NPCs could do something the PCs couldn't. That shouldn't happen.

The base/core NPC classes are fine. If you want a special NPC, give 'em a PC class. If you want 'em to be even more special, give 'em a PrC, but that PrC should be a valid option for PCs.

 

[MerricB]

I loathe the concept. One of the best changes to 3E was the discarding of the trope from earlier editions that NPCs could do something the PCs couldn't. That shouldn't happen.

The base/core NPC classes are fine. If you want a special NPC, give 'em a PC class. If you want 'em to be even more special, give 'em a PrC, but that PrC should be a valid option for PCs.

I'm not seeing the distinction in Complete Arcane. The news item suggests that some of the prestige classes would make excellent NPC villains (I agree), but there's nothing against a player from taking them - admittedly, a heroic style of campaign is likely to preclude several of them!

Cheers!

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hi-

Has this product been released?


Scott

 

[MerricB]

It will be released Real Soon Now(tm).

Either tomorrow or in a week's time, I think.

Cheers!