Favorite Wizard/Sorcerer/Arcane Magic Sourcebook?

[Tsyr]

I'm suprised as well at the one person who felt Occult Lore took a lot of work to integrate. From my read, the book pulls in very smoothly. I haven't checked on the power level concern they raised though. That may alter my opinions if I find I agree with the poster later on.

Well, from one perspective, I can see it I guess. A lot of the systems are very different.

Sympathetic Magic, for example, requires a completely different play style from standard hack-ish type games to be of any use.

Same, really, goes from Astrology, Onieromancy, Memory Magic (forget the name off hand)...

That memory magic stuff (ick) takes a lot of thought to integrate right.

Really only Elementalism, Spirit Cultivation, Herbalism, Alchemy, and Geomancy "fit in" to a "standard" game with basicly no modification... they are just expansions on more or less pre-existing concepts (Spirit Cultivation is a bit strange, but...). The others do require re-thinking the world if your running a more or less standard (FR, Greyhawk, etc) type game, since they have never really had a place in those games, outside of some novels.

 

[Kesh]

Encyclopaedia Arcane: Chaos Magic is a very fun supplement, that offers an alternative magic system. I love it, but it really needs a 2nd Edition to correct a few problems (lack of Divination or Illusion magic, for one thing).

There's talk that they might do a Quintessential Chaos Mage book if enough demand reaches the company, which would be a very good thing.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Encyclopaedia Arcane: Chaos Magic is a very fun supplement, that offers an alternative magic system. I love it, but it really needs a 2nd Edition to correct a few problems (lack of Divination or Illusion magic, for one thing).

The author, Mr.Witt, said the free errata/web-support for Chaos magic will be done by the end of the year. He said it will be worth it.

I would like to see a Quint. Chaos Mage as well.

FD

 

[applenerd]

Those books are very selective in what hey include though.

You can get everything in them and more simply by owning the PHB, Relics and Rituals, and welll.... that's about it. Maybe They have a few spells copied from one or two Green Ronin books as well.

They actually have quite a few sources:
Arcana: Societies of Magic
Beyond the Veil (adventure by Monte)
Blood Reign of Nishanpur
The Book of Eldritch Might
Codex Arcanis
The Devine and the Defeated
Dungeons
Evil
Freeport, the city of adventure
Interludes, Brief Expeditions to Bluffside
Relics and Rituals
Domain of Time and new time spells from The Tide of Years
Traps and Treachery

Now granted a lot of these aren't solely dedicated to magic but a few are. And most of them aren't from Green Ronin.

I loked at them, and couldn't find any reason to repurchase the two books I already had.

Yes in this case you may not want it. However for someone with only the players handbook, someone who plays a magic user, or a dm who likes to have all his eggs in one basket, it might be very useful. I have enjoyed mine.

 

[Nightfall]

Sword & Sorcery, no.

Not sure I understood this one Psion. Care to clarify.

 

[johnsemlak]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned Pocket Grimoire Arcana by Green Ronin! Why have only one book's worth of stuff when you can have the open gaming content from not only multiple works but multiple publishers! I find it quite helpful to have all my spells in one place! Also there is a devine version as well which is equally rockin.

applenerd

I thought about that one, but I hadn't seen it and I wasn't sure exactly what it was. Anyway I've added it to the list.

 

[Xarlen]

I have to throw my weight toward Magic of Faerun and BoEM I&II.

I can't believe no one mentioned Blight Magic by Mystic Eye Games! C'mon, for an Alternate system of making seriously nasty villains, No one mentioned it? For-shame! Forshame!

And, I'm going to endorse Encyclopedia Arcane: Necromancy, Beyond the Grave, by Mongoose Publishing.

Not only does it offer your standard array of Magical Items, Monsters, PrCs, Spells and Feats, but it also offers a new concept for the Necromancer: Negative Energ Feats. A necromancer gets one of these feats, channeling energy through him to duplicate an effect. One is like the Death Touch of the death domain, another is Animating undead via touch, or making Undead with full HPs, plus +1 per caster level I think.

The catch?

There is a list of Bad Things that happens. Whenever you use a Negative Energy feat, you roll a Fort save vs. DC 10. If you Fail, you have contracted a flaw. These flaws range from Constitution to Charisma drain, to having healing benefits halved, becoming a walking Plague carrier, your body rotting slowly, scaring small children and animals in your proximity, needing to eat raw, dead flesh to survive, or slowly becoming undead.

Plus, the new PrCs are Cool; there's one that allows necromancers to graft creature parts onto bodies. Imagine a zombie with Carrion Crawler tentacles attached to his shoulders.

 

[Nikchick]

I'm thinking of which Wizard/Arcane Magic sourcebook to invest in; there are so many of these things nowadays.

What do people recommend?

Not sure what you're looking for in an Arcane Magic sourcebook, but I'm kind of partial to Arcana: Societies of Magic myself.

Nicole

 

[Synicism]

Mongoose, perhaps. Sword & Sorcery, no. Every last regular prestige class in POM allows full spell advancement, despite some pretty potent class abilities.
OTOH, many legendary classes totally lack legendary classes... which make them rather unappealing compared to sticking with the core class in most cases.

I agree that a number of the prestige classes in Path of Magic are a bit on the powerful side, but OTOH, I really got turned off by a bunch of the spells in the Relics & Rituals book that strike me as more than a teensy bit overpowered. I guess I look at it this way - I can fix a prestige class and a spell just as easily, but there's a lot less work for me to do with PrC's because there are a lot fewer of them. I also don't like to be surprised by munchkin spells that come out of nowhere because I just missed one or two when I was reading through the book.

 

[Nightfall]

They already fixed Shocking Bolt, if you're concerned about that. 1d8+1 per level instead of 10d8+10.