Forged in Magic

[Messageboard Golem]

Legendary heroes wield great weapons to bring justice to those that would prey upon the innocent. Tempered in the fires of divine providence or arcane might, these instruments serve to lay low the forces of evil.

Forged in Magic is a 128-page supplement for the D20 system for use in any fantasy D20 campaign setting. This Sourcebook details hundreds of magical and psionic items and those that forge them. Also included are ideas on how to make magic items that will be identified with your legendary heroes for generations to come.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Forged in Magic
Edited by Melissa L. Miller and Nelson Rodriguez
128 b & w pages
$19.99

Forged in Magic has some strengths going for it. First off, it covers some unusual types of magic items. Next up, it covers a lot of items. I mean there are something like 400 new magic items found in the book. There’s bound to be something for almost everyone. I also enjoyed the new materials, something I feel that we haven’t seen a lot of in 3rd edition yet. Now if only someone would do a supplement on power components and their use in the game…

The book is broken up into different sections so if you want to look up rings, you’d look at rings and check the alphabetical listing under that section. The prestige class and feats are put at the back of the book and are followed by tables for GMs who love to randomly roll stuff. Need to see minor potion? Look at table 5 and see if you get Warpaints of the Skohir or go for the major potions and hope for a Salve of Trollskin.

The contents of the book really are going to provide every GM at least a good read as the items aren’t just cut and paste of powers and abilities, but stories and backgrounds tied into the Arcanis setting. Does this make the book useless for different settings? Well, I run a SL campaign and because this book has a table of Arcanis Gods and other goods for the setting, I don’t have to break out my Arcanis book to decide which SL god equates well to which Arcanis god and this is important as there are several items within the book that are related to gods and their ilk.

On other areas, like with weapons wielded by orcs and their humanoid kin, does it matter what the specific name of the region they hail from is? I mean most are going to come from some type of mountain terrain and the names of the characters can always be incorporated into your own campaign without using the specific name of the location he came from. Take the sword Heartsfang, used by the leader of the Orcs of the Crimson Blade. Does it really matter what mountain range they came from? Could they come from the Kelders in the Scarred Lands for example? Yup. Could Chief Splittusk still be holding a grudge against the forces of Mithril for example, instead of Enpebyn? Sure.

Even when the history is completely useless, the GM gets a lot of material to work with. Take for example the magic properties of weapons and armor. These are non-campaign specific and can be added to any setting. Need a piercing weapon equal to vorpal? Try skewering. Need a new type of damage for your weapons instead of frost or fire? Try concussive and concussive burst. How about destruction, the disruption ability for slashing weapons.

Another innovation is the section on disadvantages. These range from battlelust, where you may not start a fight, but you’ll never walk away from one, to unlucky, where the wielder doesn’t score critical hits as easily.

The new materials section is also something for all campaigns. Need some black iron to forge a powerful masterwork armor that’s got inherent acid resistance and reduces chain of spell failure? How about some glass steel that acts as it’s made of crystal for purposes of psionics? Oh yeah, it’s lighter and has a decreased spell failure chance. Good stuff eh?

In terms of crunch, there are also new feats, spells, and a prestige class, the master smith. The feats include imbue with essence and improved snatch. The first allows non-spell casters to forge magic items at great cost while the second allows a snatch attack.

The new spells are mostly low-level attack based like acidic tough and force strike, with a with odd ones like Invisibility to Humans and Battle’s Rage.

The master smith PrC is meant to be…yes, a master smith. The class reminded me a bit of the lance forger from the Dragonlance series in that they’re damn good at what they do and can easily craft masterwork items that are superior to standard ones with greater hardness and hit points and other goodies as they go up in level. Excellent support prc but I doubt many players will be using it for themselves.

For me, some of the rarely covered items I enjoyed seeing are the items found under Weapons of War. Need some constructs meant to house men and use them as tanks? How about banners? Magical siege engines? One subject rarely seen covered are the magic standards and here we get ten properties that banners can have as well as several unique ones like the Standard of the Crimson Moon. All of these things are good and add depth to a campaign. I’ve always found it strange that individuals can be running around with more armor and arms of magic than a whole town and not see war sized items of magic. Between this and some older stuff in Dragon, I may actually have enough goods to start laying the smack down on my players in the Scarred Lands.

The artwork ranges from okay to good with several excellent pieces. I felt that less artists with the same amount of art might’ve resulted in a more unified look for the book. The book uses standard two-column layout with the text being boxed by a border. Interior covers are not used and the OGL takes up a single page, with another page going for the credits, and four going for the table of contents.

There are some weaknesses to the book. First off, I guess I got used to Carnival of Swords with its tightly packed text. This book isn’t fluff, don’t get me wrong, but it’s well spaced. Next up, there are too many variations in the way stats are laid out. I have nothing against history and stats being on the same page but it’d be nice to have game effects clearly labeled and all together. I don’t like reading the bonus of the sword at point A and the other powers at point C. Next, I’m hoping that more companies will put the cost to the creator in both gold and experience points in books like this. Lastly, although I own Arcanis, there are some rule effects native to that setting alone. Unlike Psionics that are part of the core rules, not everyone is going to know what bloodlines are and how to use some of the material in here.

Outside of those problems, each of which is minor in their own right, the book is truly a gem of a magic item collection. If you enjoyed Swords Into Plowshares, you’ll enjoy Forged in Magic as it has a campaign history behind it with over 400 items and several all purpose sections that’ll enhance any campaign.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Joe, I have seriously considered getting this book. Your review was helpful, but since you and I running the same campaign world, any highlights for a Scarred Lands fan like myself?

(btw you are right, I think that perhaps R&R3 should have a section on power components for the Scarred Lands and their uses.)

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well there are some things I'll be using when my players get a little higher in level.

Battledress of the Mercenary Captain: I use lots of mercs in my campaign so this one is a nobrainer.

Shade Hunter: Undead based armor that's evil so it's going to come from Gilivid (did I spell that right?)

Burrowing Arrows: These are like living arrows that burrow into flesh. I used to have snake arrows that keept attacking so yeah, I dig these.

Firecrux: A great flamberge sword forged by a priesthood... Flame of the North... when wielded by a paladin of Nier the weapon gains greater power. Switching Neir to Corean.

35 melee weapon properties
5 ranged weapon properties
17 armor properties

Tons of other stuff. I'll be incorporating most of it slowly.

Part of the things I liked were that there seemed to be a lot of serpent stuff (Adders Ring for one) and I'm running the Amphora thing now so it's all good.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Cool! I hope you have fun with the Amphora Cycle then! Only another two weeks.

Btw it's Glivid Autel. But don't worry, I don't expect everyone to be able to spell it. But that shade hunter sounds nice.

Firecrux sounds neat! Not mention you could also substitute Madrielite paladins in there...but I think Coreanic works better.

Now I KNOW I have to get this.

 

[Paradigm]

Joe,

Thanks for the review! We appreciate the kind words. There are not very many products that are going to provide more than 400 highly detailed magic items in one source, much less the piles of additional material on weapon abilities, feats and spells.

We are confident that any DM will find the information contained within extremely useful.

Eric Wiener
Paradigm Concepts, Inc.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I agree 100%. Lots of great stuff. Hey, I won this at En World Day in Chicago and felt honor bound to review it.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

A magic item book like no other.

A large part of my collection is books of spells and magic (Relics & Rituals I & II, Book of Eldritch Might I, II & III), but the book I go back to more often than any other when looking for treasures for my games is Forged In Magic.

This book has over 400 magic items, QUITE detailed and thick on texture and flavor. It has items from the strangest to the most typical, and a whole PILE of new materials, something I love to make items feel more unique. Each one has some background material, with stories and histories from the "Codex Arcanis" campaign setting also published by Paradigm.

A great touch is that all items have the cost listed in gold AND in XP (for those crafting the items), something only rarely seen in other products (and usually reserved to those few items with weird XP costs due to expensive spell components).

There are some nice touches, like disadvantages for magic items that affect the owner, such as unlucky which reduces the incidence of critical hits. And there is a Prestige Class to help make all these wonders, the master smith (although I've never used it, whereas I HAVE used about one hundred of the items from this book since its release). And some new spells, mostly of low level and generally combat oriented.

There is a great chapter on magic items for warfare... siege engines, banners, constructs and everything else a nation with some access to arcane or divine casters would have assembled for a good old-fashioned land war in Asia.

The weapons and armor section is almost competitive with the one from Bastion's Arms & Armor book... something like 40 weapon properties and half that many armor properties.

The art is pretty good, if fairly sparse.

But most importantly, I've already used nearly 25% of the material in this book in play, and expect to use more. Truly a masterpiece of magic items, sure to compete with the old Encyclopedia Magica series from TSR...

 

[Psion]

Forged in Magic

Forged in Magic is a magic item sourcebook by Paradigm concepts. Paradigm is the publisher of the Arcanis campaign setting, and much of the book's background material is apparently drawn from the Arcanis setting.

A First Look

Forged in Magic is a 128-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $19.95 US. This is a good price for a book of this size.

The cover of Forged in Magic depicts a man stirring a cauldron full of molten metal with a sword rising from it, while a woman (striking an unusually relaxed pose) is casting a spell on the sword. The cover art is by Carrie Hill.

The interior is black-and-white. Interior artists include Reece Ambrose, Ant, Andrew Baker Bob Giadrosich, Anthony Grabski, Eric Lofgren, Thomas Manning, and Steve Snyder. The interior art ranges from poor crude line art to very good and well shaded and composed illustrations of warriors and standards.

The interior text is a little large, knocking down some of the cost effectiveness that is gained by the books low price per page ratio. The layout could be a bit easier to read; the book would have benefitted from dividing the item descriptions into descriptions and game effects.

There are some typographical errors. For example, in several places where a fraction is called for, there is an underscore instead.

A Deeper Look

Forged in Magic provides over 400 magic and psionic items. Each item has complete descriptions, including complete cost and requirement descriptions.

The book is arranged into sections according to magic item, but doesn't use the same sequence and categorical sections as the DMG does.

The first section is rings, followed by potions, rods and wands, staves, wondrous items, monster charms, weapons of war, constructs, armor, shields, miscellaneous weapons, swords, weapon and armor abilities, spells, feats, materials, and a new prestige class, the master smith. Two appendices provide a summary of deities and other details of Arcanis that are referred to in the book. After the appendices are a set of tables for randomizing items from the book.

The book has a fair focus on psionics, not especially surprising considering that Arcanis features psionics. Universal items are scattered about the book, mostly in the wondrous items section, but some in other sections as appropriate. For example, there are a number of staves that use psionic powers. A specific example are the elixers of psychic power, which provide power points and a DC bonus for use of specific psionic combat modes.

Rods and wands are combined into one category. There are only three wands, but they more resemble rods or staves in power and effect, and two list craft rod as a requirement, so they are effectively rods for all practical purposes. The third wand clearly exceeds the normal limits for wands.

Monster Charms are a new category of item, or so the book says, but they only require the Craft Wondrous Item or "Fetish" feats (I do not know the source of the last feat, but suspect it comes from Arcanis.) Each one is a charm crafted from a body part from a specific creature that allows use of some of a creature's natural abilities.

The Weapons of War section features items that are used as part of a military campaign. This includes magical siege engines, standard, helmet plumes, and stone guardians (basically a golem that acts like a sort of magic mecha.)

The constructs section introduces a variety of new construct creatures, including the fauxgoyle (a construct made to resemble a small gargoyle) and the reanimate template (which basically is an attempt to salvage a destroyed construct, with considerably reduced power.)

The new materials section introduces a number of material which lend special properties to items crafted using the material, similar to the nature of mithral and adamantium in the DMG. For example, alloys of titanium and beryllium are introduced that produce very light armor, and armor made of orikalka provides spell resistance to the wearer.

The imbue with essence feat and the master smith prestige class have a similar function: they allow the creation of magic items by non-spellcasters. The former is a bit unbalanced in that it apparently has the ability to supplant any craft feat, and the writeup seems like it is missing some important details about how it works. The master smith is much better balanced: they have some very reasonable limitations on the types of items they can make.

A listing of the items in the book would be beyond the scope of this review. Generally, the concepts behind the items are good. They are less formulaic than many items I have seen in sourcebooks of this sort, giving many of them a more exotic, mysterious feel. Some of them, however, seem to betray the rules for magic items without adequate explanation.

Conclusion

Forged in Magic is a nice resource if you are looking for additional items for your campaign. I don't think the background material is as adaptable or inspiring as that of the items in the Relics & Rituals, but the items feel less kit-built and stale than many I have seen.

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I personally liked the concussive abilities in the weapon qualities section myself.