Complete Mage ToC

[Soel]

I see many scoff at new base classes, but I scoff at things like roles/archetypes info, especially if it clocks in at 15-30 pages. This was queasy and felt like padding even in a book like PH2 (if you're a new player, why would you not buy the first PH instead of number 2?) but feels especially out of place in this book.

Overall, this book still looks decent. I just wish for a few more invocations that what there appears to be (or at least, a majority of ones not tied to the eldritch blast.)

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

1) As Crothian and others have said, new base classes use lots of space and people that won't use them would propably prefer stuff instead that is easier to integrate.

Fairy snuff - not much I can say to that one except... specialist base classes don't need as much room as some other base classes might. All the information on spell casting, spells per day etc can be done as a 'refer to base class X'. The only thing that needs to be set out is the differences from X.

2) I've found nothing to be as hard to incorporate into a game as base classes. I'm playing an everything goes game and have found I can pick and drop pretty much everything into it without complications, hurt to suspense of disbelieve or anything like that. Most PrC's, feats, spells, races etc I've in fact found to enhance my game. Not so new base classes. They need far more work, distract, often feel tacked on. Some will be used far more than others and at that point it becomes hard to justify why some of them are in fact base classes and not PrC's when there may be only one or two in the whole campaign.

I see your point but in the case of the specialist wizards it is much less of a problem.

3) There has recently been a flood of new base classes and I guess I'm not the only that feels enough is enough. For example we've got both the dragonfire adept and the dragon shaman within what? Three months? And both of these classes are:

-Mechanically interesting, but hard to justify from a flavor standpoint.
-Fill the same flavor niche
-share some abilities (get draconic wings, natural armor, breath attack)
-encroach on the mechanical niche of older base classes (dragonfire-warlock, dragon shaman-bard and marshal)

Don't know enough about these classes - will have to take your word on it. What I was looking for was equivalents of the Dread Necromancer for the other specialists - wizards that felt like they worked exclusively in one area - not just cast one more spell a day from that school. Really there's very little to separate and Abjurer and an Enchanter other than the spells they cast - when in fact they should have different skills and other abilities. Maybe the enchanter should get Leadership bonuses, the Abjurer better hit points, things like that. In a way the Dread Necromancer and the Beguiler are two steps toward this (though I don't have the relevant books - I've just heard of them), and I suppose the Warmage could be looked at as the Evoker specialist-base class... but what about the others.

4) There are many new base classes that are barely supported, in fact many of the base classes could use some. Why spit out so much new stuff, when the old one could use some depth?

These wouldn't need any significant support - the spell lists would all be wizard lists, new feats and stuff could all be relevant.

I see that the alternate class features are 'intended' to do a lot toward this... and given the game I'm running at the moment is quite mage-centric I'll very probably be picking this one up (a first new purchase in a while actually!). I see that the alternate features may very well do a lot of what I'm trying to acheive and hope they will go as far as I want them to. If I'm lucky I may be able to use them to set out some 'base classes' that each uses specific variants.

 

[Psion]

And this is from the guy who wasn't bothered by one-third of the Complete Arcane being devoted exclusively to Wu Jen spells?

Are you missing the connection here, or just trying to be ironic?

One of my objection to the deluge new classes is that they dilute the support of the game... and they go unsupported.

Wizards actually supports one of their new classes and I'm wrong for appreciating that they actually supported it?

 

[glass]

It's as much of an oxymoron as see invisibility.

Rather less so, in fact.


glass.

 

[Felon]

Wizards actually supports one of their new classes and I'm wrong for appreciating that they actually supported it?

If this is a reference to 1/3 of Complete Arcane being devoted to wu-jen-exclusive spells, I think it works a lot better to support the class in a way that doesn't simply amount to nerfing other classes--and that's exactly what exclusive access amounts to. It's like making the rogue special by telling the ranger that he can't look for traps with a DC higher than 20. An example of a much better approach is the Adaptive Learning class feature of the warmage, beguiler, and dreadneck.

If one has a beef against devoting three pages to a class that won't see usage, then why no beef against devoting even more pages to supporting a class that won't see usage?

I think it's wise that only a couple of pages are devoted to warlock invocations. If there was ever a "looks good, plays bad" class, that is it.

 

[Psion]

If this is a reference to 1/3 of Complete Arcane being devoted to wu-jen-exclusive spells, I think it works a lot better to support the class in a way that doesn't simply amount to nerfing other classes--and that's exactly what exclusive access amounts to. It's like making the rogue special by telling the ranger that he can't look for traps with a DC higher than 20. An example of a much better approach is the Adaptive Learning class feature of the warmage, beguiler, and dreadneck.

Let's just say I differ with you on this point philosophically. The rogue/ranger thing is a naked (and unnecessary) attempt at niche protection. Having a spell list that defines a certain feel is fair game IMO. (I'll give you a nod that it could have been fewer spells, but still, I'll take one well supported class over 5 "class mill" classes any day.)

Adaptive learning is just compensating for the fact that those classes should have never existed as classes in the first place.

If one has a beef against devoting three pages to a class that won't see usage, then why no beef against devoting even more pages to supporting a class that won't see usage?

If a class is well supported, then there is no reason it shouldn't see usage as long as it fits the campaign. Poorly supported classes, OTOH, contend with being outshone by their better supported cousins.

 

[Nyeshet]

Actually, there recently was a poll on ENWorld regarding all post-PHB classes, set to determine which were balanced, enjoyable, etc - and the Warlock won the poll out of 60+ classes.

Incidentally, the Psion and Psychic Warrior made it into the top 5 of that poll, as did the Duskblade, if memory serves well today. I forget what the other top-five class was. Although the Beguiler comes to mind, I keep thinking that it made the top 20 but fell somewhere before reaching the top 10. I'll have to look up that poll again.

My only complaint is that the Warlock is too focused on a fiendish ancestry. There should be options for celestial, fae, and perhaps draconic and even other ancestries as well. Similarly, there should be some invocations that are only available to certain ancestries and some available to all ancestries, and there should be some alternate class levels for each of the ancestries. In effect, I feel that the class should be non-lawful for its AL and then have something akin to the Ranger's combat styles - each 'style' in fact denoting the ancestry through which the Warlock gains its traits and power. Then there should be a list of invocations, some of which have ancestry requirements, thus keeping the feel of each ancestry distinct beyond a few alternate level class features. Otherwise, I think the Warlock is a well conceived class - good in flavor, design, play, and general enjoyability.

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As for the CM ToC, I admit that having the remaining specialist wizards granted their own sorcerous base classes might have been nice, but the remaining specialists are among the hardest to grant, I think.

We have:
Dread Necromancer for Necromancy
Beguiler for both Enchantment and Illusion
Warmage for Evocation

So we are left with Conjuration (perhaps a Summoner style class? with teleporting or even some minor healing abilities?), Divination and Abjuration (I can easily see those two combined into one class.), and Transformation (arguably the hardest to make a class for).

As for the Wu Jen, have you forgotten that nearly every Wu Jen spell was also useable by another class - Clerics, Druids, Sor/Wiz, etc? So in a sense it was further expansion of the spell lists of the PHB classes - which no one complained about, as I recall, at the time the book was released. Indeed, many stated that they had expected a notable increase in spells (as, prior to the Spell Compendium, this was one of the largest increases in spell lists in some time since PHB 3.5e came out).

Of the 148 spells listed, only 46 were Wu Jen only - a mere 31.08%, and nearly a third of those were re-copies due to having Lesser and Greater variants of the same spell. Also, nearly all of them could only be used by one of the five types of Wu Jen (metal, fire, water, etc) rather than any Wu Jen. Finally, as the spell section of the book numbered 43 pages out of 192 total pages in the book, this amounts to a mere 7% of the book devoted to only Wu Jen spells (43/192=22.4% of the book for spells, 22.4%*31.08%=6.962% total of the book).

So the Wu Jen did not, as you stated, use up a third of the CA book. Instead it seems to have used up a third of the spell-section of the book - and so a mere 7% of the total book.

 

[Psion]

My only complaint is that the Warlock is too focused on a fiendish ancestry. There should be options for celestial, fae, and perhaps draconic and even other ancestries as well.

Well Dragon Magic answers one of your prayers.

 

[Nightfall]

Agreed Psion/Al. Dragonfire adept is certainly the answer to those wanting a Warlock type with draconic influences.

 

[Nyeshet]

Let me guess, a draconic heritage variant of the Warlock? I also heard that there was a celestial variant in one of the Dragon magazines.

Does it just rename the level based specials and add a few more incantations to choose from, or does it actually alter the level based abilities to new ones better suited for its heritage?

[Edit]

Hmm, I had heard that Dragon Fire Adept was a variant of the Dragon Shaman (or vice versa), with the auras traded out for some other abilities. Does it gain incantations, then? Or perhaps have an eldritch blast? Or perhaps its Eldritch blast is replaced with an ever more damaging breath weapon attack? (perhaps 1d6 at second level, and 10d6 at 20th level?)

[/Edit]