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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2011809" data-attributes="member: 1129">The Complete Arcane is the third book in the series. It proclaims itself to be “A Player’s Guide to Arcane Magic for All Classes”. Written by Richard Baker, it takes a lot of 3.0 and 3.5 materials and updates it even as it expands on other fields by adding new core classes and other player oriented goods.Weighing in at 192 full color pages for $29.95, the book is priced to own. WoTC uses its size as the dominant player to get a book out that most publisher would’ve had to charge $34.95 for and would probably be in black and white. I don’t like the cover. It’s like a mage yanked Santa’s hat and made some funky adjustments to it while getting a buck toothed cat to sit on his shoulder. Interior art ranges from bad to fantastic. Some of my favorite artists like Ron Spencer and William O’Connon add their touch to the book while other picture, perhaps inspired by the earlier Tome and Blood, fail to capture the look, which is hard as Wayne Reynolds did all of the art in Tome and Blood. Layout is standard two-columns with important information isolated from the other parts of the text.To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect from this book. Many PrCs have already been updated in books ranging from the DMG (Arcane Trickster, Dragon disciple),Complete Warrior (bladesinger, rage mage, spellsword, stonelord) and Liber Mortis (pale master and true necromancer). Spells have received coverage in the Miniatures Handbook and other mage bits have been sprinkled liberally throughout most of the new releases.I grit my teeth a little when I read about the new core class the War Mage. It’s not because it’s not a viable idea. An arcane spellcaster who studies a limited selection of spells, mostly damage inflicting, and has slightly better hit dice and armor ability than a standard mage. It’s that this class was done in the Miniatures Handbook, which doesn’t leave too much left of that book as its own. At least we get Tarth Moorda, an “old fortress” for training them. It has an overview map including different areas like the Chapel and student’s quarters as well as the main gate and towers. I enjoyed the updated Wu Jen, a spellcaster who might be a little too close to the mage for most, but has a unique spell list. The bad news for some is that their spell list is pretty extensive. The good news is that they haven’t undergone a lot of changes like the Samurai did in the Complete Warrior and that those still using Oriental Adventures may find the updated Wu Jen spells useful for other classes in OA.The real ‘new’ class of the bunch is the Warlock. They gain spell like abilities but no actual spells. This makes them a more native magic user in some ways than the Sorcerer, but also limits their abilities, as there is only so much they can do with those abilities. Most I imagine will focus on augmenting Eldritch Blast, an ability to hurl magical power that inflicts the old 1d6 per level and whose level equals the warlock’s level divided by two, with a maximum of 9th level.In terms of PrCs, a lot of old favorites have been updated and some new ones brought into the fray. Despite that, I think this book has the fewest number of PrCs in the series thus far. I’m not the PrC specialist others are, but I recognize many of them from the original Tome and Blood like the Acolyte of the Skin, Alienist, Blood Magus and Mage of the Arcane Order. Some of them don’t look like they’ve received extensive updates but more along the lines of tweaking.The Acolyte for example, gains a poison ability even as his flame and cold resistance drops to 10, his high-level damage reduction drops to 10/good, and he loses his ‘Fiendish Knowledge’ (bonus feats).  Still gains the greatly reduced spellcasting ability though, one every other level. A casual look at the tables wouldn’t reveal the changes as many of the abilities are named the same, but the game mechanics have indeed changed. Same with the Alienist as most of the abilities are similar to the old ones but a few, like when the Alienist and his familiar transform, have either moved levels (the latter) or changed due to the edition changes to damage reduction.In terms of new PrCs, one of my favorites is the Suel Arcanamach. This is a fighting man who knows some spells, similar in some ways to an arcane paladin, and can wear heavier armor as he goes up in level with less and less spell failure chance. He also has good saves against a mage’s favorite type of spells with good ref and will saves. There were a few others that were interesting, but to be honest, I felt that the sorcerer didn’t get a lot of options designed purely for them. I am the only one who remembers the Eldritch Master from Dragon 280?Marked down in the “Why wasn’t that included” are the Bonded Summoner and Havoc Mage from the Miniatures Handbook. Both fill niches that aren’t really covered here and fit in well with the other material copied over.In feats, we see a lot of the mage based ones from the Miniatures Handbook updated. These are mostly the ‘Sudden’ feats that allow you to apply a metamagic feat to a spell without preparation once a day. Strangely, while some of the useful spells in a mage style campaign are included from the MH like Mage Slayer, a feat that prevents mages from casting defensively if you threaten them, others, like Mounted Casting, where you gain a bonus to concentration checks while casting while mounting, are not.Others are updated from Tome & Blood. These range from Arcane Defense where you gain a bonus to save against spells from one school of magic to Energy Admixture and Energy Substitution where you modify the energy type of your spell. Some great classics that’s nice to have updated to 3.5 standard.In terms of brand new material, I couldn’t tell you for certain what’s 100% new. Some like the Draconic Feats are meant for a Sorcerer to showcase his spellcasting heritage. This chain of feats ranges from converting spells into a breath weapon attack to gaining a natural armor bonus. For flavor, I hate to see evil get it’s way but feats like the Black Lore of Moil and Lord of the Uttercold, are cool concepts with game mechanics that either deal extra negative energy or deal partial negative energy. While the concepts are cool, I would’ve loved to have seen an overall feat that allowed the caster to add a different type of energy per feat, like weapon specialization. Why not White Light of the Heaven dealing positive damage?Regardless, any way you look at it, there are more feats here than in Tome and Blood and the Miniatures Handbook and GM’s and players should play test them to insure they fit the GM’s style of campaign. Now this being a book about Arcane users, you know that there are going to be a lot of new spells. Spell lists are broken up by class, level, and for mages, school. Thankfully they note spells appropriate for the Hexblade from the Complete Warrior, something that doesn’t happen enough as the company gives you one set of spells and never gives you any more. Upon a brief look, it doesn’t look like War Mages gain a lot, if any new spells thoughSpells from Tome and Blood are updated like the lesser and standard orbs, which change school from Evocation to Conjuration. I can understand them wanting to expand the utility of all schools but having so many fresh damaging conjuration spells, and changing the spell resistance from yes in T&B to no in this book, does not look like a 100% good thing. I’m sure those playing conjurors will disagree with me though. Spells from the Miniatures Handbook also make it like Blades of Fire where your blade is surrounded by fire and inflicts extra damage to various repair spells from 0 to 4th level to fix constructs. Perfect for Eberron campaigns. This isn’t to say that all spells from the MB are updated though. Some like Curse of Impending Blades, Legion’s, among others, are missing.One thing some might not like is the attention given to the Wu Jen. Unlike the War Mage whose spells are readily identifiable as belonging to the standard wizard class, most of the Wu Jen’s spells are unique to her list. Communing with Spirits? Creating Cloud Chariots? Using various elemental based spells like Earth Bolt and Elemental Ward? Creating swords of lightning? All Wu Jen only. I can fully understand the need to keep those spells with an appropriate flavor to the correct caster but Lightning Blade inappropriate while Blades of Fire isn’t?In looking at magic items, the book surprises me. It talks about items being something other than what they may have started off as in the game. Take potions for example. If you’ve got the standard creation feat and Craft Wondrous Item, you can make all sorts of things that function like potions, but look different. These include ‘fruit’ and tiles that you crack, to skull talismans you step on. Now this is useful. This is showing you how to use the standard rules in a way that makes your campaign unique instead of adding minor creation feats that no one is going to take. This advice is expanded for scrolls and Spellbooks are well, allowing the GM to add a lot of diversity to his world.After that, we get into the more standard things. You know, the Crimson Coat of Ilpharzz and swords of magebane. Some of these build up on the new concepts introduced like the Warlock’s Scepter while others are good for most arcane spellcasters like the ring of Arcane Might or the blinding Powder of the Black Veil. Sadly, no unique new magic weapons were included, which is a shame since we have PrCs and new core classes that could certainly benefit from them, not to mention the whole cover thing noting that this book is for all classes.One section that seems out of place in the whole Complete series is Arcane Monsters. We get a new template, the effigy, a construct made by effigy masters, as well as some elemental forces ranging from the Grues to the Monolith’s, but sadly, no Princes.GMs will find Chapter Seven, Arcane Campaigns, useful. It goes over the core classes, including bards and the new ones, wu jen and war mages, and notes how the different specialist mages may act and behave. Advice on spells that can have far reaching impact like flying, invisibility, and teleportation is covered, as well as different campaign models that the GM may wish to use. These range from mages as rulers to mages as hunted criminals. It even provides advice on running a mage duel. Now this isn’t something like we’ve seen in the past, but rather, role-playing ideas on how the duel would commence, and the rules of etiquette so to speak in mage dueling, useful for campaign building.One of my favorite older products is College of Wizardry. Bruce Cordell crafted the Arcane Order who ruled their fortress, the Mathghamhna, and founded special abilities that would in 3rd edition, become metamagic feats. The book provides some options as to what schooling in such an arcane institution might be like and includes a pair of feats to showcase exceptional students. Collegiate Wizard grants you more starting spells plus more spells gained per level while Precocious allows you to cast a second level spell if you make a DC 8 caster level check. It changes when you can cast a 2nd level spell, but the idea of someone with great potential is still there and can help represent certain characters of fantasy fiction more easy than just school specialization. The book ends with information for running an Epic Campaign. Not a huge section and certainly no rules for crafting epic spells or any example epic spells but it does cover advancement for the warlorcks, warmages and wu jen as well as an example epic class progression for a PrC (Mage of the Arcane Order) and some epic feats. Overall it’s useful, but certainly of limited use.On one hand, I hate the inclusion of the material from the Miniatures Handbook. On the other, I hate that they included only ‘some’ material. It’s great to see a lot of the Tome and Blood PrCs updated but it’s odd to see what didn’t get updated, like the maps and organizations and heck, the fantastic art of Wayne Reynolds.I’ve already started using the book in my campaign. Last time I GMed, the players came across the Faceless Legion while traveling the planes and I used that as an excuse to give them access to some of the spells from this book. I have several NPCs that belong to the Arcane Order and a few villains that use other PrCs (Alienists and Blood Magus anyone) included here. There is no doubt I’m getting my use out of the book. On the other hand, you still need the older books because they’re not completely obsolete yet.If you’re looking to own the latest incarnation of your spells, feats, magic items, and PrCs, the Complete Arcane is perfect for you.</blockquote>

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