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Divination: The All-Seeing Eye is the fifteenth book in Mongoose Publisher's encyclopaedia arcane series. This 64-page book delves into the often-overlooked school of divination. There are few Game Masters that have not encountered the power of this minor school of magic when it successfully unravelled their carefully laid plans but few wizards and even fewer, if any, sorcerers, specialise in divination. Although the school can be used to great effect between combat sessions, as a school, it boasts only a couple of spells that can be used actually during the fight. Taking the usefulness of divination spells for granted, this book instead sets out to outline the usefulness of the diviner as a character type and to expand his repertoire as a contributing member of an adventuring party.
After a one-page introduction, a brief introduction to why Diviner characters (characters that specialise in divination magic above all others) are useful in an adventuring scenario, the book begins with a five-page overview of the Divination school of arcane magic. Previous encyclopaedia arcane books worked by presenting the reader with a strongly realised description of the type of magic they portrayed, including the many facets of the magic that its practitioners agreed upon. Divination does not do this but instead attempts to present a series of ideas about what makes divination what-it-is. The chapter is a wealth of interesting ideas and does make a few observations about divination magic that, at first sight, are not immediately obvious but, those familiar with the series, might find that it lacks a certain focus.
Knowing the Unknowable, the second chapter, begins with an overview of the divination school as it already stands. The chapter moves on to the props and tools that a Diviner might find useful and than onto a selection of prestige classes, each specialised in the use of divination magic. There a five prestige classes in this book, more than average for a book in this series. The Arcanopath is dedicated to opening his mind to the powers of telepathy, the Mindshifter to mimicking the mental properties of other creatures, the Savant is a character whose natural talent for divination aids him during combat, the Seer is a master of peering into the future and scrying and finally, the Witness is a master of supernatural senses and acute awareness of his environment.
Each of these prestige classes is well inspired but the implementation is poor in places. The Arcanopath is the perfect example. Although the idea of the Arcanopath is a nice one, the class is poorly realised. Firstly, the class breaks the standard guidelines for a prestige class in two important ways, and seemingly for no good reason. Firstly, the class includes ability scores in its prerequisites, this flaw is continued throughout all five prestige classes and unfairly restricts access to their abilities and is, unfortunately, a common error found in many Mongoose Publishing books (although that might be a decision on the part of the corporation and not their authors). Secondly, the Open Mind class feature actually penalises a character for have a good ability score. In this case, applying a -2 or -4 penalty to the checks in question would have been reasonable but instead, the writer decided that a more intelligent character would be more susceptible to mental manipulation than a stupid one. High ability scores should always be a good thing. In addition, many of the Arcanopath's class features seem overly powerful, especially the touch of power and aura of power abilities.
The Mindshifter includes some nice ideas but probably should have been two prestige classes. The class abilities seem to bounce about without any real sense of progression from lesser abilities to more potent abilities as you would expect from a prestige class and again, a few of the class features are a little over powered, especially thoughtslayer and spiritmeld. The Savant should have been a nice class and it does have some nice features, particularly a nice spell selection and a few of its class features. As with all the other prestige classes, though, there is too much crammed into the class progression, leaving the class overly powerful.
The Seer is the best of the bunch, combining a nice idea, a strong feel for divination and some good class features to make a prestige class that would be a welcome addition to any game where the Game Master enjoys the mysterious side of Divination. Again, the prerequisites include ability scores (but the Game Master can simply ignore that) and there are a few places where the features seem to diverge from the feel of the class (the fate's advocate class features for example) but overall, the class is only good, not overpowered, and even the ability to use a level-9 spell at all times as the last feature of the class is balanced against the overall progression. The Witness, the final class, is an interesting idea that it well worth a read if you are looking for an interesting character concept. Unfortunately, the class is far too powerful. 6 ranks in three cross-class skills is not sufficient downside to counter two good saving throws, a bonus feat every other level, skill mastery every two levels and three good or, in the case of the last, very good, class features.
The book's largest chapter is devoted to new spells for the divination school. There are 39 new spells in this book, ranging across all nine spell-levels. The spells are all very well written although in places the rules could have done with some clarification. There are some very nice low level spells, especially analyse creature, estimation and intuitive insight that on reading you immediately wonder why they were not part of the original d20 rules. On the other hand, there are a few spells that are either badly handed, gilded tongue for example should surely have been a +10 insight bonus to Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Gather Information and Bluff, or simply over powered, as is the case for almost all of the "Touch of" spells that seem to unfairly draw on too much of the power of other classes, something that all d20 writers should be wary of when writing spells. With such a wide selection, though, this chapter will surely offer something of use to all game masters.
After the spells, divination moves on to Feats. This chapter presents a nice feat called Psychic Spell that seems particularly appropriate to diviners, enchanters and illusionists. Unfortunately, the other feats are not so well thought out. The new awareness feats are far more powerful than equivalent feats found in the d20 game and there seems to be no balancing factor associated with them. Aptitude is grossly unbalanced. Precognitive Learning, on the other hand, is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum and might have been better presented as a spell than a Feat, where it actually gains you nothing in the end.
The magic items chapter presents some nice divination items, all of which seem perfectly useable, although often quite powerful. Silverlake, an artefact, would make a wonderful item to find in the possession of a powerful adversary or the object of a campaign long quest, although it would be perhaps unwise to create a scenario where it fell into the hands of the players permanently. The book finishes with two chapters, The Art of Gemsight and Help for Game Masters. The Art of Gemsight is a curious chapter that does, as it almost states, seem more like a seed for a book in its own right and not a fully worked out chapter. The idea of using precious gems in the construction of crystal balls is nice but is surely superseded by the increase in price that would be associated with any increase in a crystal ball's power. The final chapter, though, is definitely the most useful in the book. Two pages of wonderfully thought out advice that would be of use to Game Masters, both novice and experienced in how to use and adjust to divination in their games.
The artwork in this book is reasonable with a few nice pieces, especially the inner cover that seems to be becoming the place to look for the best picture in all of the later books in this series. In this case, a wonderful picture of a wizard wielding a crystal ball. The art scattered in and around the prestige classes is also particularly impressive.
Although this book has some nice ideas, it is let down specifically by a lack of focus. The writer appears to have strong views on divination but has seemingly actively avoided sharing them with us; instead preferring to offer various possible takes on the magic. Although this would have been fine in a larger book, the encyclopaedia arcane series stands on its ability to present the reader with a strong vision of the magic involved, and divination fails to do this, which is a shame because in those places where the author does share (such as the Game Master's notes), it is clear that his ideas are worthy of incorporation into any campaign. The book also lacks balance. Many of the spells are simply too powerful or step too much into the realms of the other classes (classes which are often trodden over by spellcasters at higher level as it is). The Feats and prestige classes were well inspired but they attempt to stack too much power into too little room, making it impossible to incorporate these good ideas into a balanced campaign. Of course, with a little work, these issues of game balance can always be overcome. Overall, the book does, unfortunately, fail to live up to its promise but for those interested in divination as a school of specialisation, it is still probably one of the best books available and worth a read.
After a one-page introduction, a brief introduction to why Diviner characters (characters that specialise in divination magic above all others) are useful in an adventuring scenario, the book begins with a five-page overview of the Divination school of arcane magic. Previous encyclopaedia arcane books worked by presenting the reader with a strongly realised description of the type of magic they portrayed, including the many facets of the magic that its practitioners agreed upon. Divination does not do this but instead attempts to present a series of ideas about what makes divination what-it-is. The chapter is a wealth of interesting ideas and does make a few observations about divination magic that, at first sight, are not immediately obvious but, those familiar with the series, might find that it lacks a certain focus.
Knowing the Unknowable, the second chapter, begins with an overview of the divination school as it already stands. The chapter moves on to the props and tools that a Diviner might find useful and than onto a selection of prestige classes, each specialised in the use of divination magic. There a five prestige classes in this book, more than average for a book in this series. The Arcanopath is dedicated to opening his mind to the powers of telepathy, the Mindshifter to mimicking the mental properties of other creatures, the Savant is a character whose natural talent for divination aids him during combat, the Seer is a master of peering into the future and scrying and finally, the Witness is a master of supernatural senses and acute awareness of his environment.
Each of these prestige classes is well inspired but the implementation is poor in places. The Arcanopath is the perfect example. Although the idea of the Arcanopath is a nice one, the class is poorly realised. Firstly, the class breaks the standard guidelines for a prestige class in two important ways, and seemingly for no good reason. Firstly, the class includes ability scores in its prerequisites, this flaw is continued throughout all five prestige classes and unfairly restricts access to their abilities and is, unfortunately, a common error found in many Mongoose Publishing books (although that might be a decision on the part of the corporation and not their authors). Secondly, the Open Mind class feature actually penalises a character for have a good ability score. In this case, applying a -2 or -4 penalty to the checks in question would have been reasonable but instead, the writer decided that a more intelligent character would be more susceptible to mental manipulation than a stupid one. High ability scores should always be a good thing. In addition, many of the Arcanopath's class features seem overly powerful, especially the touch of power and aura of power abilities.
The Mindshifter includes some nice ideas but probably should have been two prestige classes. The class abilities seem to bounce about without any real sense of progression from lesser abilities to more potent abilities as you would expect from a prestige class and again, a few of the class features are a little over powered, especially thoughtslayer and spiritmeld. The Savant should have been a nice class and it does have some nice features, particularly a nice spell selection and a few of its class features. As with all the other prestige classes, though, there is too much crammed into the class progression, leaving the class overly powerful.
The Seer is the best of the bunch, combining a nice idea, a strong feel for divination and some good class features to make a prestige class that would be a welcome addition to any game where the Game Master enjoys the mysterious side of Divination. Again, the prerequisites include ability scores (but the Game Master can simply ignore that) and there are a few places where the features seem to diverge from the feel of the class (the fate's advocate class features for example) but overall, the class is only good, not overpowered, and even the ability to use a level-9 spell at all times as the last feature of the class is balanced against the overall progression. The Witness, the final class, is an interesting idea that it well worth a read if you are looking for an interesting character concept. Unfortunately, the class is far too powerful. 6 ranks in three cross-class skills is not sufficient downside to counter two good saving throws, a bonus feat every other level, skill mastery every two levels and three good or, in the case of the last, very good, class features.
The book's largest chapter is devoted to new spells for the divination school. There are 39 new spells in this book, ranging across all nine spell-levels. The spells are all very well written although in places the rules could have done with some clarification. There are some very nice low level spells, especially analyse creature, estimation and intuitive insight that on reading you immediately wonder why they were not part of the original d20 rules. On the other hand, there are a few spells that are either badly handed, gilded tongue for example should surely have been a +10 insight bonus to Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Gather Information and Bluff, or simply over powered, as is the case for almost all of the "Touch of" spells that seem to unfairly draw on too much of the power of other classes, something that all d20 writers should be wary of when writing spells. With such a wide selection, though, this chapter will surely offer something of use to all game masters.
After the spells, divination moves on to Feats. This chapter presents a nice feat called Psychic Spell that seems particularly appropriate to diviners, enchanters and illusionists. Unfortunately, the other feats are not so well thought out. The new awareness feats are far more powerful than equivalent feats found in the d20 game and there seems to be no balancing factor associated with them. Aptitude is grossly unbalanced. Precognitive Learning, on the other hand, is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum and might have been better presented as a spell than a Feat, where it actually gains you nothing in the end.
The magic items chapter presents some nice divination items, all of which seem perfectly useable, although often quite powerful. Silverlake, an artefact, would make a wonderful item to find in the possession of a powerful adversary or the object of a campaign long quest, although it would be perhaps unwise to create a scenario where it fell into the hands of the players permanently. The book finishes with two chapters, The Art of Gemsight and Help for Game Masters. The Art of Gemsight is a curious chapter that does, as it almost states, seem more like a seed for a book in its own right and not a fully worked out chapter. The idea of using precious gems in the construction of crystal balls is nice but is surely superseded by the increase in price that would be associated with any increase in a crystal ball's power. The final chapter, though, is definitely the most useful in the book. Two pages of wonderfully thought out advice that would be of use to Game Masters, both novice and experienced in how to use and adjust to divination in their games.
The artwork in this book is reasonable with a few nice pieces, especially the inner cover that seems to be becoming the place to look for the best picture in all of the later books in this series. In this case, a wonderful picture of a wizard wielding a crystal ball. The art scattered in and around the prestige classes is also particularly impressive.
Although this book has some nice ideas, it is let down specifically by a lack of focus. The writer appears to have strong views on divination but has seemingly actively avoided sharing them with us; instead preferring to offer various possible takes on the magic. Although this would have been fine in a larger book, the encyclopaedia arcane series stands on its ability to present the reader with a strong vision of the magic involved, and divination fails to do this, which is a shame because in those places where the author does share (such as the Game Master's notes), it is clear that his ideas are worthy of incorporation into any campaign. The book also lacks balance. Many of the spells are simply too powerful or step too much into the realms of the other classes (classes which are often trodden over by spellcasters at higher level as it is). The Feats and prestige classes were well inspired but they attempt to stack too much power into too little room, making it impossible to incorporate these good ideas into a balanced campaign. Of course, with a little work, these issues of game balance can always be overcome. Overall, the book does, unfortunately, fail to live up to its promise but for those interested in divination as a school of specialisation, it is still probably one of the best books available and worth a read.
