[FFG] School of Magic Books: Questions, Praise and A Gripe

[Iron_Chef]

Question: Is School of Evocation out yet? Your website says yes, but your shopping cart says no.

Question: When is School of Enchantment coming out? I bought Dweomercraft: Enchanters and Encyclopedia Arcane: Enchanters and would undoubtedly buy a third book on the subject as it's a specialty school I've always liked but was never able to figure out how to use effectively before Tome & Blood's Mindbender PrC and the two books mentioned, which finally make Enchantment a viable choice. Shouldn't FFG be timing their releases to coincide with similar product from its competitors?

Question: When is School of Conjuration coming out??? Mongoose has their Conjuration book coming out in May and I'm playing a Conjurer now. I just got Path of Magic and like the Summoner PrC in it but I'd like to know what to expect from the upcoming Devoted Conjurer core class?

Praise: I just bought School of Illusion and am overall very happy with EVERYTHING in it. The production value, as usual for any FFG d20 product, is top notch and screams, "Buy Me!" The PrCs are neat, tons of new fun spells and a sprinkling of interesting spell foci and magic items round out a good value for $14.95. I will definitely be picking up other books in this series (I've bought just about everything hardcover FFG has put out, plus half the Instant Adventures).

Gripe: I have an issue with the Devoted Illusionist core class: The Augment Illusion class ability forces you to take metamagic feats or it's worthless. The class gives up too much (access to all other schools of magic outside their specialty and Universal) for the benefts it receives, IMO. My group has only ever had a character with a metamagic feat once since 3e came out, and only then as a requirement to get into a PrC. It was only used in play once (and only because it didn't modify the spell level thanks to the PrC). The Devoted certainly makes metamagic more fun and accessible by eliminating or reducing the penalties involved, but it really forces the PC to take metamagics or almost all their class abilities are wasted. The Devoted gives no bonus feats with which to help balance this narrow focus, either, so all your feats are gobbled up by metamagics instead of on necessary item creation or general ones like Spell Focus, Spellcasting Prodigy, etc.

Is this Augment (blank) going to be a class ability of all Devoted casters in this series? An alternate version would be nice that didn't dictate the character's feat path...

The Opposed Spell feat is too restrictive, IMO, as well. I'd let the wizard learn up to the Int mod in "opposed" school spells (or up to their Int mod in combined spell levels), or at least however spells they normally get for free (2 or more if modified by a feat) for going up a level. It is a feat, after all, and the Devoted can't afford to blow a feat just to learn one spell, can they?

Can the Devoted multi-class as a regular or specialist wizard to make up for these problems? I'd guess not, but still...

I guess I really like the basic idea of the class, but not the execution, at least not for PCs. It's too restrictive. I really like variant core classes as a general rule of thumb, like FFG's Commander from Path of the Sword. Any ideas on how to tweak it? I keep staring at it and wanting to use it, but I'm having a bad case of "DM Block".

 

[malladin]

Firstly let me appologise as what follows is a shameless plug, but at least I'm not only plugging my own work .

If you want an extra book on Enchanter's, why not check out Joe's Book of Enchanters at RPG Now.

An while you're there, we've also got our own book on Abjurers, St. John's College of Abjuration (as far as I can tell we're the only ones brave (/stupid) enough to do a book on Abjuration, so I think its unique)

Both these products have received good reviews here at EN World, so check them out.

Cheerio,

Ben, Malladin's Gate

 

[Iron_Chef]

Firstly let me appologise as what follows is a shameless plug, but at least I'm not only plugging my own work .

If you want an extra book on Enchanter's, why not check out Joe's Book of Enchanters at RPG Now.

An while you're there, we've also got our own book on Abjurers, St. John's College of Abjuration (as far as I can tell we're the only ones brave (/stupid) enough to do a book on Abjuration, so I think its unique)

Both these products have received good reviews here at EN World, so check them out.

Cheerio,

Ben, Malladin's Gate

Thanks for the tip on Joe's. What were they thinking with that title, though?

I tried playing an Abjurer before and it was awful, LOL, but I really wanted the extra Shield spell at first level. I suppose I could have used your book to make it a more viable choice at higher levels.

 

[jmucchiello]

Firstly let me appologise as what follows is a shameless plug, but at least I'm not only plugging my own work .

If you want an extra book on Enchanter's, why not check out Joe's Book of Enchanters at RPG Now.

An while you're there, we've also got our own book on Abjurers, St. John's College of Abjuration (as far as I can tell we're the only ones brave (/stupid) enough to do a book on Abjuration, so I think its unique)

Ben, thanks for the plug. I wouldn't call it stupid to have done a book on Abjurers. (I thought Enchantment was danged foolish when I started it.) Divination is the true call of bravery. And both Divination and Abjuration are on my summer work list. (But IC, don't wait for my book, get Ben's first. Mine may not appear for over a year.)

Iron Chef: About the title, read Krug's review on EnWorld. I think he rips into me (deservedly so) the most about the title and he gave it a 5 out of 5. If I could rename it, I would but until I release another school of magic book, I prefer not to think about it. Maybe when the next one is nearly finished I'll start a contest.

 

[Krug]

"you wanna have a book about enchanters... those folk dat... dat enchant people, and ya wanna call it... JOE'S BOOK OF ENCHANTERS? What da next you gonna do? RUSS' BOOK OF DIVINERS?

"And da cover. I mean, dis cover. it look like a college textbook man, and who would wanna buy a book with that. you're supposed to write about ENCHANTERS but yer cover got no... no... ENCHANT-MENT!"

 

[Iron_Chef]

Joe, I bought your pdf based on the RPGNow reviews and it looks really good from the quick skim I gave it. Will read it more in-depth later, but it looks to be a nice addition to my Enchantment collection.

I thought as an RPGNow vendor you could edit your pdfs anytime so you could change the title or whatever?

 

[tensen]

Question: When is School of Enchantment coming out? I bought Dweomercraft: Enchanters and Encyclopedia Arcane: Enchanters and would undoubtedly buy a third book on the subject as it's a specialty school I've always liked but was never able to figure out how to use effectively before Tome & Blood's Mindbender PrC and the two books mentioned, which finally make Enchantment a viable choice. Shouldn't FFG be timing their releases to coincide with similar product from its competitors?

One.. if you liked the other products, and are heavily into enchanters, then I would recommend looking at Joe's Book of Enchantments. As one of the writers from Dweomercraft: Enchanters I'll confirm that Joe's book has a variety of different things that are useful, but not covered in our product.

Two. Coincide with similar products from competitors? Rather a bad thing to do. Many publishers actually make sure that products don't do that. Look at yourself... Would you have wanted to buy 4 or 5 products covering the same topic, with possible huge overlaps during a short period of time? Or would you rather have the time to look over the product, get more money, and decide to pick up more products and judge them on their own?

 

[jmucchiello]

"you wanna have a book about enchanters... those folk dat... dat enchant people, and ya wanna call it... JOE'S BOOK OF ENCHANTERS? What da next you gonna do? RUSS' BOOK OF DIVINERS?

"And da cover. I mean, dis cover. it look like a college textbook man, and who would wanna buy a book with that. you're supposed to write about ENCHANTERS but yer cover got no... no... ENCHANT-MENT!"

But isn't any PR, good PR? Of course, now all the good pre-colon names are taken: Dweomercraft: Foo, Encyclopedia Arcane: Foo, etc. Even Bishop Marley's School of Foo would be out of line.

IC: But if I change the name I lose what little name recognition I've got for the Ennies. I do plan to have a revised copy with a few more pages and illos by mid or end of April. I just have to get the never to be finished (or so it seems) Character Customization book done.

Tensen: What was wrong with the bunch of Necromancy books that come out at once? I just wish there were review sites doing comparison reviews so people could get the lowdown: If you like x, y, z get so-and-so's book. If you prefer a,b,c get the other guy's book.

 

[Iron_Chef]

Re: Re: [FFG] School of Magic Books: Questions, Praise and A Gripe

Two. Coincide with similar products from competitors? Rather a bad thing to do. Many publishers actually make sure that products don't do that. Look at yourself... Would you have wanted to buy 4 or 5 products covering the same topic, with possible huge overlaps during a short period of time? Or would you rather have the time to look over the product, get more money, and decide to pick up more products and judge them on their own?

No, I'd prefer it if everything on the subject came out at once so I could pick up whichever one(s) I thought best without having to wait. By releasing at the same time, you enter the market at the subject's "peak" popularity. If you wait until after the other guys get theirs out, everybody's already bought the first one or two out and probably won't buy yours, as they think they don't need it.

Frex (and I have no figures other than gut instinct to back this up): I think Mongoose may have sold more copies of Seas of Blood than FFG did of Seafarer's Handbook because they hit the market first (and covered the more widely useful subject of naval rather than the more narrowly focused underwater adventures that FFG went for). Still, between them both, they cover shipboard and underwater rules, so in theory you won't need to get anybody else's books on either subject.

I am confident that Mongoose and FFG outsold the "Johnny Come Latelies" on aquatic/naval adventures (Skull & Bones, Broadsides!, Avalanche's Pirates book [I forget the name], etc.) in part because they hit the market first. They also have better distribution, but getting the product out first is most important, because they generate the most "buzz" and "hype". I have never seen any of these other companies' naval books in my game store, but MGP and FFG's were there. Quality doesn't matter so much as "first" and "slick production value" IMO. Sure, I prefer quality, but if I can't find it, I can't buy it, and I probably don't wanna buy it months or years later if I already bought another book or two or three on the subject... I want to buy whatever is "hot" at the time instead.

With the Enchantment issue, I bought everything on the subject because the MindBender PrC from T&B whet my appetite for more Enchantment magic. This in turn, fueled my interest for more books covering specialty schools of magic. Since all the Enchantment books I bought were good and offered something different, I kept buying more until I had "everything" on the subject. I'll doubtless end up buying FFG's School of Enchantment when it is released, too.

 

[tensen]

Tensen: What was wrong with the bunch of Necromancy books that come out at once? I just wish there were review sites doing comparison reviews so people could get the lowdown: If you like x, y, z get so-and-so's book. If you prefer a,b,c get the other guy's book.

I didn't end up buying most of them. Since by the time I got around to purchasing others of them.. there were newer and better topics to having their products bought. So they got pushed further and further back on my want list.