Complete arcane, good new info-worth while? or beating dead horse,worthless?

[was]

I thought that this book was pretty good.

 

[Henry]

It strikes me that the Warlock is TRULY what the sorcerer used to be billed as - a mobile artillery battery. It's for players who like the idea of a magic-user, but hate keeping track of a bunch of spells. He can sling, sling, sling magic all day long, and only has anywhere from 1 to 10 powers to keep up with, from what I saw.

Plus, topping out at 10d6 for eldritch blast (or is it 11d6?) at 20th level means that he's much less effective than a true 20th level wizard or sorcerer. Anyone else have some high-level warlock stats to correct me or elaborate a bit?

 

[Particle_Man]

Sadly, the Warlock only gets 9d6 at 20th lvl. It is commonly thought that this used to be more, but was modified, since the Epic version bumps up to 12d6 at 22nd level, and then increases at 1d6 per two levels.

The Warlock is still cool though. And I say this even after facing an Otyugh with a halfling warlock without the Sudden Still metamagic feat.

 

[Pants]

Plus, topping out at 10d6 for eldritch blast (or is it 11d6?) at 20th level means that he's much less effective than a true 20th level wizard or sorcerer. Anyone else have some high-level warlock stats to correct me or elaborate a bit?

I wouldn't say that he's 'less effective' at higher levels, the warlock is just 'different' at higher levels than a Wiz or a Sorc.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Part of the point of the Warlock is you are not merely doing damage. And in the long run, not just to one target.

A Frightful Eldritch Chain is not bad at 6th level -- ranged touch on two targets for 3d6 damage plus Will save or be Shaken. That is about as good as a 2nd level spell.

The meatshields will love you for the Repelling Eldritch Chain.

 

[Psion]

Not too fond of the warlock, but it seems like a workable concept.

I am glad to see they didn't botch the Wu Jen the same way they did the samurai.

I dig the enhancements to the abjuration school.

 

[Buttercup]

I have Tome & Blood, but I bought Complete Arcane anyway. Frankly, it was probably not worth the money for me, because everything I can use I already had from the 3.0 splatbook.

However, if you don't already own Tome & Blood, and if you want some interesting prestige classes and new spells for magic users, then I'd say the book is a reasonable investment.

(Or if you're a D20 addict like me.)

 

[Samothdm]

The one thing I did not like was the Wu Jen. It has no place in my campaign...

I'm curious why it doesn't fit.

When the 3.0 Oriental Adventures came out, I didn't allow Wu Jen just because I thought that they were too close to a regular wizard and could be role-played as wizards with a different background and such.

Reading over it again in Complete Arcane, though, I think that it could be useful to help differentiate the magical abilities of some different races in my campaign. I'm thinking here of doing something like limiting the races that can take certain arcane classes. For example, elves can be wizards but not sorcerers, orcs can be sorcerers but not wizards, goblins can be wu jen but not wizards or sorcerers, etc. That kind of thing. It's basically something I stole from the DM in a game I play in. It sounds fun to me.

I think the thing is to not get caught up on the name and think that wu jen automatically means "Asian". Just change the name to something non-asian and you have a caster who bases his powers on one of the five elements.

 

[Gez]

I said the favorite class of elves was Wu Jen (for its more chaotic, excentric aspect fit better the elven personality than the rigid and strict wizard), and promptly renamed it "elementalist".

I've messed a bit around with the spell list, so that the five wu-jen elements are air (including sonics and teleportation), earth (including buffs), fire (including light), water (including acid and darkness), and magic (force effects, abjurations, anything that affects magic like analyze dweomer, antimagic field, or Mordenkainen's disjunction...).

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Complete Arcane, like Warrior and Divine before it, is an overall excellent book. While I didn't care for either the Warmage or the Wu Jen, I thought the Warlock was an excellent base class (though the alignment restriction doesn't make sense-- or mesh with the flavor text), and it has a nice selection of new spells, feats, and PrCs.

It's far better than Tome and Blood in my opinion, and well worth the $20 I spent on it.