[FFG/L&L] School of Evocation (& School of Illusion) books

[Davelozzi]

Has anyone seen the new School of Evocation book from FFG's* Legends & Lairs line? My brother plays an evoker in my campaign and I'm wondering if it's worth recommending to him. I saw it today at the game store but didn't really get a chance to check it out as they were about to close for the day.

Feedback on School of Illusion is welcome too. Presumably it's got much of the same kind of stuff, just geared to illusion instead.

Thanks in advance!

*Fantasy Flight Games, not to be confused with Fast Forward Entertainment (FFE)

 

[BV210]

I wrote a review of School of Illusion a month or so ago, but I haven't had a chance to do one for Evocation yet. I will say that after a fairly quick perusal before I had to pack it up for my move, it looked to me that Evocation is as good a resource as Illusion was. And I like Illusion, can't wait to create a "Devoted Illusionist". Anyway, I've always found FFG stuff to be of the highest quality, so I'd say you can't go wrong picking these up.

 

[Iron_Chef]

I liked the Illusion book, except for the PrCs which were weak if flavorful, and the "Devoted" core class, which was too weak, IMO. There are a lot of very cool spells in it, however, and that's the main reason to buy it. Evocation, while subject to all the same complaints as illusion, did not strike me as nearly as cool because how many different ways do you really need to blow someone up? The book is good, but more a luxury item for fans of destruction magic. Not worth it to me even if I was an evoker, but YMMV. Illusion I recommend, however. Can't wait for Conjuration!

The Mongoose Encyclopedia Arcane books aren't nearly as good though they cover similar themes. Enchantment was the best one, and the only one I thought useful enough in the long-term to be worth buying (though Constructs was cool). Some of the others tried to make you graft on whole new subsystems of magic that were too much trouble to implement for too little reward. Again, YMMV. They might be very helpful if you were trying to do something different than the core rules as a flavor thing.

 

[The Sigil]

I like the books, but I do have one problem with them... they have an AWFUL lot of white space (e.g., pp 24-30 of School of Evocation) - tables that tell me what descriptors fit a spell and if it allows me a reflex save that take up seven pages when a simple text list might have taken up a single page, tops, is not acceptable. It reeked of "well, we don't have any more material, so let's fluff up the page count." IOW, it felt like a ripoff to have those pages inserted.

Throw out these, the rather sparse TOC, the "ads page" and the OGL, and you're left with about 50 pages of material for $15. Too expensive for my tastes. I might - MIGHT - be willing to plunk down $10-12 (maybe) for 50 pages... but not $15. Not when I can get a 176-page hardcover from them like Path of Magic for $30. That's 3.5 times the content at 2 times the price, and in hardcover to boot!

I picked up School of Evocation, but I won't be picking up any of the others at full price.

--The Sigil

 

[Gallo22]

I've got them both and like them alot. The Evocation has some spells that might be alittle too powerful for the levels they are at. I thought they were worth the money, but I did get them slightly discounted.

Gallo22

 

[Sinistar]

I like them both and I detest the idea of a specialist class. I always feel that the real power of a wizard is that you can always gain more power in the form of new spells. I also feel that the most diverse list is the most powerful list.

That said, if I ever wanted to be a death-dealing staging platform I would be the evoker class from this. It is insanely good, but insanely limiting. You are casting evocation spells all day, but you will be like a patriot battery on a bee hive. It is all about 'splosions.

I like the FFG stuff a whole lot. I found both of the school books to be worth my money and I look forward to the rest.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Both books are good and similar;
a Devoted Evoker/ Illusionist class. They can only cast spells of Universal and their school, but gain bonuses to them, this is easier since they add spells.

They also split the spells into various subdivisions. (Evocation=Force, electricity, etc)

They then have a PrC dedicated to each of those subdivisions in various ways.

There are also other rules and such, and the aforementioned charts where they break all the spells down.

Evoker is a lot more than just the blaster type though.

 

[Psion]

As has been alluded too, both books have a "dedicated specialist" class, which I found to be a totally redundant concept. Fortunately, the rest of the books don't rely on them, and the PrCs and spells are eminently usable with normal specialists and generalists.

I find the PrCs pretty cool, Evocation's slightly less so because the classes are pretty much just what you would expect (an acid specialist, a fire specialist, etc.)

 

[The Sigil]

Just for the record (it may be unclear), I thought the books themselves had good solid content in them. (FFG is one of my favorite companies that way). I merely thought that for the amount of content, they were slightly overpriced. I'll buy them on sale or online at a discount in a heartbeat, but I can't see myself paying full price for them, becasue I think there's just not enough meat there (no matter how good the meat is).

--The Sigil

 

[Davelozzi]

Great, thanks for the feedback everyone.